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THE CRIME AGAINST IRELAND 



BY 



J ELLEN FOSTER 



WITH A PREFACE BY 



JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY 



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.NV O^ 



MAR 3ll«BB y, 



BOSTON 

D LOTHROP COMPANY 

FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS 



THE UB RAKV 
OrCONOREs 

WAiHlHOTt .• 



Copyright, 1888 



D. LoTHROP Company. 



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PREFACE, 



This book, I take it, is one of the latest illustra- 
tions of the Irish power of conversion or assimilatiort. 
Mrs. Foster went to Ireland with no bias in favor of 
the people or their national cause ; and she came away 
not only a convert, but a missionary, and one of the 
most eloquent and impressive of those who tell abroad 
the tale of afflicted Erin. 

Were it not for this converting power there would 
be no worldly hope for the weak who were oppressed. 
The earth would belong to the strong and the raven- 
ous. For instance, the chains that were bound on 
Ireland by Cromwell in 1642 would still hold on the 
chafed limbs. Cromwell gave the land of Ireland to 
English soldiers — every acre of it except the prov- 
ince of Connaught. But where is the Cromwellian 
now in Ireland? He has disappeared like a stone 
thrown into a lake, or rather like a fierce storm of hail 
driving violently into the breast of a lake, and melting 
at once into its kindly flood. 

This same power is going on outside Ireland ; and 
Mrs. Foster^s book is one of its restless reachers 
and tentacles. In a certain way, England and Ireland 
represent essentially different human forces : one the 
force of impact, of organization, of pressure, of indi- 
vidualized greed — in a word, of conceiitration. The 
other, the very opposite — as steam is to water — the 



Preface, 

power of diffusion, expansion, neglecting organization 
to win opinion, preferring to make all men of one 
mind to making a few men of one body. 

By this means, Ireland, having failed to shake off 
the English grip with a weapon, is succeeding with a 
word. Instead of a hopeless, but heroic pike against 
a long-range rifle, Ireland has learned to depend on a 
weapon that carries farther than a cannon — patient 
explanation. Instead of striking her enemy in the 
face, as of old, and getting strangled in the dark, 
Ireland arraigns the oppressor before mankind, and 
asks the world for a verdict. The passionate one 
binds her heart into submission, and reasons instead 
of rebelling. The hottest-blooded race in Europe, not 
afraid of fighting, God knows, becomes a national ex- 
emplar of the supreme force of self-restraint, accept- 
ance, submission, and dependence in the changeless 
instincts of human nature that must hate wrong when 
it is made clear and work for justice when it asserts its 
claim. 

John Bovle O'Reilly. 



INTRODUCTION, 



To the student of American institutions, the condi- 
tions growing out of our diverse populations present 
great perplexities. 

Foreign-born citizens, and those but one generation 
removed, form an important factor in our educational, 
industrial and political life. 

How our civilization shall assimilate that which is 
good and discard that which is bad, is the question 
before the publicist. 

Spending about two months in Ireland in the year 
1887, I hoped from contact with the people to bring 
back something of value to the solution of America's 
problem. 

To my interest in the people as related to us was soon 
added an intense sympathy with their historic strug- 
gle for national existence, and their present wretched 
condition. 

This struggle is. the latest phase of the universal de- 
mand for liberty. In my investigation of the causes 
which have led to Ireland's present unrest, in addition 
to a personal study of the situation on the spot, a large 
number of works written by both Irish and English his- 
torians were available, but I felt the need of a summary 
which would present with as little detail as* comprehen- 
siveness and clearness would allow, the strategic points 
in Ireland's history as affected by English rule. Such 



Lih'oduction, 

a work I have attempted in the present volume. The 
substance of the work was prepared on Irish soil, and 
took the form of letters to the Boston Journal. In its 
preparation I have consulted a large number of authori- 
ties, and have been favored with extended personal 
interviews with Irish and English statesmen, and with 
opportunities of listening to debates on pending issues 
in the English House of Commons. 

J. Ellen Foster. 
Clinton, Iowa, Jan. i, 1888. 



CONTENTS, 



Page. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE INDICTMENT 7 

CHAPTER H. 

DUBLIN CASTLE RULE I9 

CHAPTER HI. 

EVICTIONS 31 

CHAPTER IV. 

LANDLORDISM 44 

CHAPTER V. 

POLITICAL DESPOTISM 60 

CHAPTER VI. 

INDUSTRIAL DESPOTISM y^ 

CHAPTER VII. 

COERCION 89 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE IRISH LAND QUESTION Ill 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE UNION 123 

CHAPTER X. 

HOME RULE , I35 



AUTHORITIES, 



Allison. Life of Castlereagh. 

Barrington, LL. D., R. C, Sir Jonah. " Rise and Fall of the 

Irish Nation." 
Coote. History of the Union. 
Cairnes. Political Essays. 

Clancy, John J. Six Months " Unionist's " Rule. 
Duffy, Sir C. G. Young Ireland. 
Froude. History of England. 
Froude. The English in Ireland. 
Grattan. Life and Times of Henry Grattan. 
Green. History of the English People. 

Lecky. The History of England in the Eighteenth Century. 
Lecky. Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland. 
McCarthy, Justin. History of our own Times. 
Mill, J. S. The Land Question. 
O'Brien, W. Smith. Causes of Discontent. 
MacNeill, J. G. Swift. How the Union was Carried. 

And Speeches, Pamphlets and Documents, by Gladstone, 
Parnell, Dillon, Harrington, Webb, Redmond, Dawson, Mosely, 
Fox, Roseberry, Crilly, Leadam and others. 



THE CRIME AGAINST IRELAND 



CHAPTER I. 



THE INDICTMENT, 



ALL the world waits with interest the 
solution of the Irish Question. Ire- 
land's long struggle for constitutional liberty 
illumines with heroism or disfigures with 
shame the page of history. Imperial West- 
minster and gloomy Dublin Castle are both 
judge and executioner to-day. The former is 
resplendent with trappings of royalty and the 
insignia of conscious power, the latter is sul- 
len and dark, and from it the people's heart 
finds no expression. Its bare walls rise amid 
the noise of traffic in Dublin streets, where 
the multitudes pass in decent mien to honest 
toil, or crowd in rags to beg for bread, or sit 
in squalor and dumb misery. In sculptured 
granite the forms of Grattan, O'Brien and 



8 The Indictment. 

O'Connell still give grim menace to tyranny, 
and promise morning to Ireland's long night 
of despair. But while under the shadow of 
Ireland's wrongs and indignant at England's 
stupid indifference or criminal complicity 
with those wrongs, we remember the other 
oppressions of history. Which among the 
great nations of the earth m.ay say, " We 
have not sinned " ? Russian Absolutism, 
Turkish Inhumanity, German Imperialism, 
French Communism, Spanish Inquisitions 
and (dear America, thou, too, must hang thy 
head in shame) African Slavery in the United 
States — these institutions, whether they be 
to their peoples the framework of the law, 
the spirit of the national life, or foul excres- 
cences upon the body politic, all cry out for 
redress in the supreme court of universal 
history, and shall find no full discharge till 
time is no more. 

Foremost among these criminal nations 
to-day stands proud England, world-wide in 
estate, mighty in resources of material wealth, 
glorious in literature and arts, unparalleled 
in achievements, invincible in arms. Eng- 
land must bow her proud head when this 



The Indictment. 9 

poor little Ireland — too near for successful 
resistance, too far for entire assimilation — 
points in dumb pantomime, or shrieks in 
wild refrain of race subjugation, of religious 
oppression, of agrarian outrage and of politi- 
cal despotism. 

Has England been so occupied in assert- 
ing her military supremacy in the corners of 
the earth that she fears not this paralysis 
near her heart ? 

While developing her wealth in the Indias 
and the islands of the sea has she forgotten 
a part of her united kingdom across a nar- 
row channel steadily depopulated by famine, 
pestilence, and forced emigration, even in 
sight of her great bounty ? Has she carried 
Bibles to the heathen and herself forgotten 
the Golden Rule toward her own? Have her 
scientists discoursed of the origin of species, 
the orbits of worlds and the distance of suns 
in arrogant indifference to the Irish peasan- 
try close within her shadow, who in igno- 
rance and misery have toiled in ditching and 
draining, in sowing and reaping, while they 
brooded over that anomalous system of 
Anglo-Irish agrarian economics under which 



lo The Indictment. 

a poor season and failing crops brought 
starvation and eviction to the tenant, while 
sun and rain and bountiful harvest enriched 
him not, but made possible his continuance 
on the soil, and compelled his payment of 
increased tribute (rack rent) to a foreign 
landlord? Has she out of the vitality of a 
national life nurtured by religious toleration 
and the spirit of democracy among the peo- 
ple, thrown off one after another the fetters 
of barbarism and adorned herself with the 
robes of Christian civilization, while within 
the breath of her perfumes, the odor of her 
incense and the sound of her hallelujahs has 
lain — all full of sores — this Lazarus at the 
gate ? 

Have not all the nations of the earth has- 
tened to her jubilee ? Have they not from 
sincere hearts joined her grand Te Deum 
and Gloria Patria as the procession of half 
a hundred years has passed in grand review? 
All voices render unstinted praise to that 
personal nobility of character in woman, wife, 
mother, Queen, which has set the name Vic- 
toria in the mosaic of this century's achieve- 
ments. But amid all this glad acclaim I hear 



The Indictment. 1 1 

Isaiah's voice: " Is not this the fast that I 
have chosen, to loose the bonds of wicked- 
ness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let 
the oppressed go free, and that ye break 
every yoke." 

Did the old prophet see Christian Eng- 
land bound to this body of death ? I am 
appalled as I read the page of history and 
with my own eyes and by personal contact 
study the distressing condition of the pres- 
ent. The truth compels this terrible arraign- 
ment. Would to God it were otherwise ! 

What is the truth ? What does the page 
of history tell? What are present conditions ? 
And what of the future ? 

Ireland contains thirty-two thousand square 
miles. Its shores are circled with mountain- 
ous ridges, save where deep sea indentations 
receive the water of its many rivers. Its soil 
is productive, and the climate is genial ; the 
gulf stream bears early the moist verdure of 
the tropics, and stays long the icy hand 
of winter. The heart of the island is level 
or gently undulating, and ditching and drain- 



12 The Indictment. 

ing have rescued many bogs. There is now 
little timber, much having been recklessly 
wasted, and no re-forestry attempted. With 
increase of grazing lands there has been little 
increase in number or quality of cattle, sheep 
and hogs. Its mineral resources, if any there 
be, are undeveloped ; its great fishing oppor- 
tunities almost wholly neglected ; its manu- 
factories, except only whiskey, porter, linen 
and a few woollen mills, are extinct. Agri- 
cultural products are of the simplest vari- 
eties ; of rotation of crops little is known. 
Wheat, barley, oats and the " everlasting 
potato " are grown on the same field year 
after year. Potato planting, growing, digging 
and eating being the simplest co-operative 
plan between nature and the tiller of the 
soil, is always approved by the average Irish- 
man, and is by far the most popular combi- 
nation known in this country. 

Why is Ireland thus now a mendicant 
among the nations ? She is not orphaned of 
Heaven ; she is green Erin to her sons : she 
is still a beautiful island of the sea to every 
passer-by. 

The solution of this sad problem is found 



The Indictment. 13 

in the dual system of agrarian outrage and 
military and political despotism forced for 
centuries upon her, combined with the always 
operative forces, for good or ill, of race pro- 
clivities and ecclesiastical dominance. Ire- 
land's individual history, through association 
of ideas, is in the minds of uninterested stu- 
dents overshadowed by her political union 
with England. We are wont to consider 
English history as including that of Ireland., 
Not so. One thousand years had made a 
record not mglorious, before England's at- 
tempted conquest, and Ireland's continued 
rebellion began. The Roman Conquest, that 
first great mile-stone in England's proud 
race, marks no time for Ireland. The Roman 
eagle was never planted on her soil. Her 
people never felt the imprint of that civiliza- 
tion. When England, deserted by Rome, 
asked aid of Saxon warriors against the hos- 
tile Picts and Scots, Ireland, under its native 
elective monarchy, the noble kings of the 
House of Tara, sought no foreign alliance, 
but by its own valor repelled all invaders, 
maintained its Celtic race dominance and its 
national character. England, meanwhile, in 



14 The hidictment, 

exchange for military aid and defence, be- 
came Anglo-Saxon in race and government. 

During the Saxon period, Ireland and 
England alike were overrun by Northern 
marauders. These, sometimes successful in 
England, never conquered Ireland or deposed 
her kings. The Danes held a few ports, but 
not the interior. 

Neither- was Ireland included in the Nor- 
man conquest. England had acknowledged 
Norman supremacy a hundred years when, 
in 1 1 70, Henry II began the subjugation of 
Ireland. And let it be known and remem- 
bered in the light of current events that this 
first invasion of Ireland by England was done 
under the seal and by the authority of Rome. 
I quote the words of history : " There was a 
theory of Christian sovereignty encouraged 
by Rome and expressed in a bull of Adrian 
IV, that Ireland and all other islands on 
which the light of the Gospel of Christ had 
dawned . . . did of right belong and apper- 
tain to St. Peter and the Holy Roman 
Church." 

Henry 11 had sought and obtained from 
Pope Adrian iv in 1155, permission "to 



The Indictment, 15 

enter the land of Ireland in order to subdue 
the people.'' The first conquest of Ireland 
was undisputed, but incomplete. Henry set 
up in Ireland the feudal system introduced 
into England by William the Conqueror. 
The land which before was held by tribal 
tenure he divided among the English colo- 
nists whom he settled in Ireland to maintain 
English supremacy there. The tribal pos- 
sessors of the soil were victims of military 
disinheritance of which the so-called consti- 
tutional legal processes of the present day 
are the branded offspring. From that day to 
this Ireland's griefs have been chiefly caused 
by England's stupid forgetfulness or willful 
violation of God's command, " Thou shalt 
not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." 
England also attempted to transplant her 
judicial system; she established courts, she 
proclaimed legal processes. To these her 
English colonists might flee for protection, 
but from them her Irish subjects were de- 
barred and could gain no redress, though 
they sought it long and bitterly. The tribal 
system of laws was sufficient under conditions 
of land ownership and tribal rule, but land 



1 6 The Indictment. 

tenures broken, foreign possessors in actual 
or ■ — worse yet — constructive possession, 
that former system was wholly inadequate. 
Here again do we see England's oppression 
of Ireland ; claiming to " do equity " she 
establishes"^ a judicial system which in its 
very nature makes solemn mockery of even- 
handed justice. 

Assuming to administer government in 
Ireland according to the people's will, a Par- 
liament was in due time established, with 
show of representative powers ; but the utter- 
ances of this Parliament were in the main 
adulations of suppliant slaves, or the mutter- 
ings of automatic hirelings. Of these two 
systems — judicial and political — the " Cas- 
tle Rule " of to-day is the lineal descendant. 
Through the centuries of England's domi- 
nance in Ireland she has maintained the same 
general features: Inequality in political rep- 
resentation, injustice in judicial administra- 
tion, outrage in land tenure, and coercion 
everywhere and always. To this has been 
added the cruel sting of fickleness, of uncer- 
tainty in policy. Sometimes by temporary 
and partial grants of constitutional liberty 



The Indictment, 1 7 

she has sought to develop strength among 
the people, with social order and material 
progress in the state ; but soon, disappointed 
at lack of immediate and intelligent appre- 
ciation and commensurate acceptance of the 
reciprocal obligations of established govern- 
ment, she has impatiently thrown away even 
the semblance of that responsible power 
which alone can command permanent re- 
spect in civilized society. She did not in 
herself possess power enough to long con- 
tinue that high moral tension, that suborna- 
tion of brute force necessary to the highest 
form of just government ; and, with strange 
inconsistency, she has at times wearied of 
the cost of sustained military occupancy. 
She has assumed to rule, but has allowed 
meanwhile an ignorant, superstitious and 
starving people to consume itself in intestine 
broils, in agrarian warfare, in religious exter- 
minations and race feuds. The smoke of 
these contests smelling to heaven has settled 
on England's proud escutcheon and soiled 
her illumined record amonsf the nations of 
the earth. 

The England of to-day stands before 



1 8 The Indictment. 

these accumulations of the years. Its Tory 
Government, represented by Lord Salisbury, 
Prime Minister, Mr. Balfour, Chief Secretary 
for Ireland, and Lord Londonderry, Lord 
Lieutenant for Ireland, will be judged by 
the brain and heart of the English people, 
aroused as it never has been before, in behalf 
of Ireland's wrongs ; according as they deal 
with her, will they receive sentence. 

This question takes precedence of all 
others in popular thought ; it absorbs all 
others in the nation's heart. This genera- 
tion is not responsible for the sins of its 
ancestors, but this generation must reap 
what others have sown. The operation of 
this law is as inevitable concerning nations 
as with individuals ; its results are inexor- 
able in ethics as they are universal in. nature. 



CHAPTER II. 

DUBLIN CASTLE RULE. 

ENGLAND boasts that her people en- 
joy the highest form of constitutional 
liberty. She points to hoary precedents of 
asserted and sustained popular sovereignty ; 
to her Magna Charta and Bills of Rights, 
which guarantee free speech, free press and 
the right of trial by jury. The government 
of Ireland by Castle Rule brands this boast 
as a pitiful sham. British subjects in Ire- 
land, impoverished by eviction acts, emas- 
culated by arms acts, driven by coercion 
acts, manacled by crimes bills, buried by 
habeas corpus suspension, menaced by con- 
stabulary enlargement, mocked by peace 
preservation acts, seek in vain for '' ancient 
bulwarks " of English liberty. William 
O'Brien, M. P.,"^ (who has but just now com- 
pleted his sentence as a political prisoner) 
with a desperation born of patriotism, defied 

* The arrest and trial of Wm. O'Brien illustrates the practical working of 
Dublin Castle authority, and is for that reason referred to. 

19 



20 Dublin Castle Rule. 

the hordes of petty tyrants, and declared, by 
press and speech, the constitutional rights of 
tillers of the soil. 

This horde of tyrants, hid in legal and 
judicial barracks of temporary power, silence 
his free speech, threaten his free press, and 
he, charged with high crime, is denied trial 
by a jury of his peers. 

O, Liberty ! what crimes are committed 
in thy name. 

By what authority were proceedings com- 
menced against Mr. O'Brien .f^ By authority 
of Dublin Castle, exercised through a dis- 
trict inspector having immediate control of 
armed constabulary. What is Dublin Cas- 
tle } It is the seat of the local government 
of Ireland. This government is vested in a 
privy council, made up of appointees and 
certain privileged classes. Its executive 
officers are a Chief Secretary and a Lord 
Lieutenant. The present incumbents are 
Mr. Arthur Balfour and Lord Londonderry. 
This English gentleman (Mr. Balfour) was 
appointed more especially to carry out the 
provisions of the Crimes Bill, he being known 
to be in sympathy with the policy of coercion. 



Dublin Castle Rule. 21 

They are assisted by fifteen ex-chief sec- 
retaries (English), fifteen noblemen, from 
dukes to lords (the most hated men in Ire- 
land), two past and one present commander 
of the thirty thousand British soldiers in Ire- 
land. The Prince of Wales and the Lord 
Chancellor, with judges and law officers of 
the Crown, complete this strangely consti 
tuted '' Government for Ireland.'' The privy 
council, however, never really meets for 
serious business; a few members assemble 
in a back room in the Castle to register 
and endorse the decrees of the Lord Lieu- 
tenant who is himself the mouth-piece of 
Mr. Balfour. 

The above-named legal gentlemen are sup- 
posed to advise when, and under what forms 
of law, to order ordinary or summary pro- 
ceedings against obnoxious individuals or 
associations. They may even sit as judges 
(the present law officials cannot, but most 
of the judges are ex-Law officers — one of 
them the ex-Attorney General of the present 
Government) on first trial or final appeal in 
the very cases instituted by themselves. It 
will be seen that not a man of this " Gov- 



22 Dublin Castle Rule. 

ernment " is a representative of the people 
or responsible to them. This is a modern 
Star Chamber. Its deliberations are with 
closed doors and its members are sworn to 
secrecy. By its authority William O'Brien 
was arrested. 

Before whom was he cited to appear on 
preliminary examination t 

Before resident magistrates of the town 
where, as member of Parliament, he had 
addressed his constituents on local interests. 
These magistrates are not the people's ser- 
vants, elected by them and responsible to 
them, but elected by Dublin Castle, and 
accountable to that power alone for the 
manner in which they conduct examinations 
of its political opponents. Their appoint- 
ment and salary are both largely dependent 
on the uncontrolled good pleasure of the 
Lord Lieutenant, and for tenure of office 
and promotion he is absolutely dependent on 
the Government. 

On what testimony was Mr. O'Brien's 
arrest ordered ? 

On the testimony of certain Castle offi- 
cials. 



Dublin Castle Rule. 23 

By whom was he ordered to jail to await 
trial ? 

By a Dublin Castle magistrate sitting at 
Cork. 

Before whom will he be tried ? 

Not by a jury of his peers selected from 
the county where his alleged offence was 
committed, but by two magistrates appointed 
by Dublin Castle and making returns to it. 

It is in their power, under forms of law, to 
deprive him of his liberty and to commit 
him to hard labor for a term of six months, 
if they and their superiors at Dublin Castle 
shall deem it expedient so to do. 

If the sentence shall be for a term of more 
than one month, he has the right to appeal to 
the Court at Quarter Sessions. This tribu- 
nal is instituted by the same Castle power, 
and differs from the former only in number 
of magistrates sitting. In no event can this 
British subject be tried by a jury of his 
peers. Shocking as is this illustration of 
Castle Rule, it portrays but one feature of 
the galling despotism under which Ireland 
groans. Every department of public admin- 
istration feels the blight. 



24 Dublin Castle Rule. 

As set forth in a speech of Mr. Chamber- 
lain, M. P., just before he became a so-called 
Unionist: "It is a system which is founded 
on the bayonets of thirty thousand soldiers 
encamped permanently as in a hostile coun- 
try. It is a system as completely centralized 
and bureaucratic as that with which Russia 
governs Poland, or as that which was com- 
mon in Venice under Austrian rule. An 
Irishman at this moment cannot move a step, 
he cannot lift a finger in any parochial, 
municipal or educational work, without 
being confronted, interfered with, or con- 
trolled by, an English official appointed by a 
foreign Government, and without a shadow 
or shade of representative authority. I say 
the time has come to reform altogether the 
absurd and irritating anachronism which is 
known as Dublin Castle ; to sweep away 
altogether these alien boards of foreign 
officials, and to substitute for them a gen- 
uine Irish administration for purely Irish 
business," 

The essential feature of a representative 
government is that the people shall be gov- 
erned by laws made and administered by 



Dublin Castle Rule. 25 

representatives elected by them and respon- 
sible to them. Majorities settle who these 
representatives shall be. The Parliament 
of Great Britain, through its working arm 
— the House of Commons — thus governs 
England and Scotland. The *' Govern- 
ment " is composed of ministers selected by 
the Crown, but approved by the people and 
responsible to them. The present Chief 
Secretary for Ireland was thus chosen, but 
not from the people of Ireland, and not 
responsible to them. This Chief Secretary, 
the Lord Lieutenant who is also appointed 
by the Government, live in Dublin ; these 
two are practically governors of Ireland ; 
the under officials who manipulate details 
of administration are largely a permanent 
body, their tenures of office being contin- 
ually strengthened by the indolent indif- 
ference of irresponsible governors. Three 
bodies known as the " Big^ Boards " cover 

<z> 

the larger part of Ireland's domestic affairs; 
the Local Government Board, the Board 
of Works, the Board of National Education. 
Every member of every one of these boards 
is nominated by the Lord Lieutenant and 



26 Dublin Castle Rttle, 

wholly irresponsible to the Irish people or 
their representatives in Parliament. 

The first board has supervision of the 
poor funds, the public health, the pollution 
of rivers, the diseases of cattle, and other 
purely local matters. It even exercises con- 
trol in the constitution of new town boards, 
as to the number of members of these 
boards, and may refuse to approve details of 
local expenditure, and by sealed orders dis- 
miss and dissolve boards according to its 
own pleasure. 

The Board of Works exercises great 
powers and extensive operations. It is 
wholly under control of the Lord Lieutenant, 
its three members being nominated by him. 
It directs construction of public works and 
the management of harbors and public 
parks. Minor local boards having nomi- 
nally some little power are really subservi- 
ent to it, because it controls the expenditure 
of money, and may withhold at its own 
option. The proceedings of this Board of 
Works have repeatedly been censured in 
the House of Commons by large majorities 
of the Irish members, but with no avail. 



Dublin Castle Rule. 27 

English and Scotch members find it easier 
to uphold Dublin Castle than to become 
individually informed of local Irish affairs. 
So also with the Board of National Edu- 
cation. No department of the nation's life 
lies so near its heart as the education of its 
children. None could with more safety be 
entrusted with the people themselves. This 
board of twenty members, prescribing school 
regulations, selecting or making schoolbooks, 
engaging and controlling teachers, is nomi- 
nated by this ubiquitous Lord Lieutenant. 
One very noticeable feature of the anti- 
national character of this so-called National 
Board is the absence of materials in the 
text books out of which to grow a national 
spirit. The prevailing tone and conduct of 
these schools does not nurture patriotism. 
The heroic in Ireland's history, being set in 
the frame of English despotism, must not 
forsooth be taught the children. But, not- 
withstanding all these prejudicial limitations, 
the national school is Ireland's greatest boon 
and is working out her redemption. Eng- 
land comprehends too slowly for her peace, 
that which all tyrants must sooner or later 



28 Dublin Castle Rule. 

learn, that the alphabet and the multiplica- 
tion table are universal emancipators. 

Not only are Ireland's materialities ad- 
ministered by the Gastle, but its public 
charities, asylums for lunatics, prison boards 
and boards of charities and bequests. So 
also the first circles of organized govern- 
ment, the county, the township and the 
municipal corporations are under Castle 
scrutiny. 

Grand juries of the counties and resi- 
dent magistrates are directly appointed by 
the Lord Lieutenant, and are generally 
of the landed, titled class, or their family 
dependents. 

To pay the salaries of these officials the 
tenant is taxed. Before inquisitions thus 
created and sustained he may be cited if 
charged with little or great offences ; from 
petty larceny and malicious mischief to 
felonies and high treason. 

These judicial functions are exercised 
under statutes enacted by Parliament for the 
United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ire- 
land; but for a century these statutes have 
been so warped or distorted by exceptional 



Ditblin Castle Rule. 29 

legislation for Ireland, known as Crimes and 
Coercion Acts, that but little semblance of 
original justice remains. Municipalities like 
Dublin and Cork wear trappings and the 
suits of power, which are but fictitious tin- 
sel ; for here and everywhere the Castle is 
in many matters ultimate authority. 

This is in bare outline the autonomy of 
the Castle system ; to follow its ramifications 
would require a microscopical study of the 
entire life of the people. 

This despotism can only be sustained by 
force. This ever-present force is an armed 
constabulary of twelve thousand men sus- 
tained by thirty thousand troops of Her 
Majesty's regular army. 

The people of Ireland, by act of Parlia- 
ment, are disarmed ; their miserable huts are 
continually searched lest an ambitious youth 
should by any means have secreted the 
hereditary fowling-piece or the modern fire- 
arms. In the midst of the huts, in the vil- 
lage or on the mountain side, is seen the 
substantial Government police barrack, where 
well clothed, well fed, fully armed men drill 
in the use of defensive and offensive weapons. 



30 Dublin Castle Rule. 

So, also, amid the plain attire of the few 
well-to-do and the many ragged of the na- 
tive population is conspicuous the bright 
red coat of the regular British soldier or the 
national attire of the Scotch fusileer. One 
cannot walk the streets an hour without 
these visible signs of England's conquest 
and Ireland's subjection. 

This is not a mere tale of to-day. It has 
been continued through many generations, 
and is a principal factor in Ireland's present 
degradation. 



CHAPTER III. 

EVICTIONS. 

SINCE the tenth century Ireland has 
been the seat of wars of conquest and 
the scene of intestine strife, unparalleled 
in the history of warfare, in intensity and 
atrocity if not in territorial area. Weapons 
of warfare have chano-ed with the centuries. 
A contemporary writer says of this people, 
" They are soldiers from birth." 

The conflict is as irrepressible to-day as 
at any period in the past ; the weapons now 
used are fit for the occasion and invented by 
its necessities; there are preparations for an 
immediate charge all along the line ; there 
are provisions for an unlimited siege. 

In their present resistance to the measures 
of tyranny the tenants carry a flag bearing 
the simple words " Plan of Campaign." The 
landlords through summary proceedings pe- 
culiar to the Irish system, aided by provisions 
of the penal code framed for their special 

31 



32 Evictions. 

benefit, and sustained by Crown ofificials, 
armed constabulary and even Her Majesty's 
troops, begin the assault. A war between 
these two contending factions is waged be- 
fore the gaze of the world ; if to-day a jury 
were impaneled from the Christian nations, 
a verdict would be given for Ireland and 
against her dual oppressors — landlordism 
and political despotism. Peaceable, law- 
abiding people in England and America 
watch the struggle with sympathy for the 
tenant in his deliberate and systematic re- 
sistance to the execution of law. Gentle and 
refined women cheer the resistants and do 
honor to the man — John Dillon — -whose 
brain formulated the plan, and to the great 
orator, William O'Brien, whose impassioned 
words inspire the combatants to " stand firm," 
and to " make no surrender." Statesmen, rep- 
resenting the clearest brain and the stoutest 
moral sense of two hemispheres, are proud 
to receive as brother-patriots a host of others, 
captains of fifties and captains of hundreds, 
who lead the people of Ireland in this their 
desperate struggle. The names of Davitt, 
of O'Neil, of Harrington, of Condon, of 



Evictions, 33 

Clancy, of Healy, of the brothers Mander- 
ville, will swell the record of heroes who 
loved their country and thought it all honor 
to suffer for her sake. These, all under 
Parnell, commander-in-chief, form a well-dis- 
ciplined army, hardened by long exposure, 
drilled in many combats and inspired by real 
patriotism. 

What is the cause of the war 1 " What 
do they kill each other for ? " There are in 
Ireland hundreds of farm tenants who can- 
not pay their rent ; some of them have been 
in arrears for years. The landlord desires 
to receive that which is, in law, his due. 
The tenants are utterly unable to pay. The 
landlord serves upon these delinquents cer- 
tain legal notices and orders them through 
forms of law to leave their premises. The 
tenants refuse to go. The landlord says 
they shall, and brings to his aid armed police- 
men and even the regular troops. Herein is 
the resistance. Here comes the tuQ: of war. 
Let us watch one of the many engagements 
of this campaign. 

Within a stone and turf fence lie seventy 
acres of tolerable farm land, except fourteen 



34 Evictions. 

of it, which is low and in wet seasons under 
water. It is tilled in small patches of corn, 
barley, oats and potatoes. It was stony, but 
now pretty well cleared ; it is enriched by 
sand and seaweed washed up in storms and 
gathered in inclement seasons from the 
strand. A few sheep and cows add their 
treasure of daily food and winter covering. 
The dwelling-house is of stone and mortar ; 
the out-houses of similar construction and 
appearance. For centuries this tenant and 
his ancestors have tilled this very spot of 
earth. They have drained the bogs, picked 
the stone, built the dwelling, the out-houses, 
the fences ; have put upon it every trace of 
cultivation which it bears. The present 
tenant, during his forty years' occupancy as 
head of a family, has expended eleven hun- 
dred pounds in improvements. On this 
"holding" the rent has been several times 
raised, and that in proportion as through the 
tenant's labor and expenditure the property 
has increased in value. Now the tenant pays 
an annual rental of eighty-four pounds. In 
good years, and when produce commanded 
good prices, the landlord's claim was met, 



Evictions. 35 

but since 1879 have come bad years, falling 
prices, and the amount of rental has not 
been realized off the farm ; one half year s 
rent is due and unpaid. There also hangs 
over this holding a *' hanging gale," that term 
being applied to an arrears of one half year's 
rent which accrued many years ago, beyond 
the lifetime of the present tenant. This 
arrears might have been paid in good years, 
but was refused by the landlord, the last 
refusal being some sixteen years ago. This 
is a common form of oppression ; the land- 
lord can evict without notice when a year's 
rent is due. Thus the " hanging gale " and 
the half year's present indebtedness make 
the required ''pound of flesh." This one 
year's rental is all that is unpaid on this 
seventy acres, and for this the tenant is 
served with the ejectment writ. 

In the legends which this family tells, as 
by glowing peat fires on the hearth they sit 
of winter nights, you will find that their dis- 
tant ancestor was a proud chief amid his 
clan ; that the acres all about were his and 
theirs ; that cornfields waved ; that cattle 
grazed upon the mountain side and in the 



36 Evictions. 

glens, until, on an evil day there came proud 
strangers in the dress of men-of-war. They 
will tell you that, though the men fought 
hard and long, they were at last overcome 
and lost their land ; many died of sword and 
famine and pestilence, but of the few who 
survived their ancestor was one ; he and 
his, through changing fortunes under many 
kings retained these few acres, and from 
them gathered sustenance enough to live 
and rear the generations that have been 
worn out on this soil; but now, alas! poor 
crops, falling prices and lessened remittances 
from America have all conspired, and he 
cannot pay his required tribute to the titled 
owner, who never expended one dollar on 
the land, but received it as an inheritance 
of conquest and confiscation. 

Even-handed justice declares this tenant 
has a claim upon the acres which he has 
tilled ; the resistance which he makes to 
this eviction writ is based upon this sense 
of jiistice. 

Under the Plan of Campaign systematic 
resistance was planned; windows, sashes and 
frames are taken out ; against these openings 



Evictions, 37 

iron gates, taken from lanes on the farm, 
are placed on the inside and braced by logs 
as big as a man's body ; these window props 
and those against the doors are secured by 
iron spikes driven in the earth floor ; grind- 
stones, anvils, pieces of farm implements are 
useful; blackthorn branches and limbs of 
trees, weapons in themselves, serve as impro- 
vised barricades. Every door and window 
having been secured with sufficient strength 
to resist any lesser charge than from mounted 
cannon, the inside space is filled with dense 
masses of brush and briers, which is woven 
through and bound about with wires. 

In houses containing separate apartments 
each is similarly arranged, and one or two 
men sleep in the house at night, when a 
"charge " is anticipated. They are supplied 
with rations of food and weapons of war, 
sticks, pitchforks, " blackthorns,'' hot w^ater, 
hives of bees, red pepper and sulphur for 
smoking out chimneys if approach is at- 
tempted from that quarter. Sometimes the 
women occupants are left inside as the most 
vigorous defenders. 

This is a barricaded house under the Plan 



38 Evictions. 

of Campaign. Its defences and appliances 
are varied according to the ingenuity and 
the resources of the tenant and those who 
aid him. Perhaps the words " Plan of Cam- 
paign " are conspicuously painted on the 
outside as a signal of defiance ; outrage and 
conscious right make men very bold. This 
house is approached by the authorities with 
an ejectment writ. The sheriff and perhaps 
two deputies first demand admission ; no 
answer received ; then begins the forceful as- 
sault; he orders up his "emergency men," 
eight or ten supporters popularly known as 
the "crowbar brigade." They carry picks, 
axes, crowbars, and use them with what effect 
they can. They are protected by constables 
with batons and swords, and sometimes armed 
companies of the regular troops. The con- 
tending parties are not alone in these battles ; 
the people gather from miles around ; the 
news spreads like wildfire ; for the battle of 
one tenant is the cause of all. It not un- 
frequently happens that insulting language 
is used by constables and bystanders, and 
assault and injury and sometimes killing 
ensues. Dublin Castle, not long ago, sent 



Evictions. 39 

official instructions in the '' don't hesitate to 
shoot " message which has become a notori- 
ous phrase in street parlance. 

The presence of sick or aged in the house 
do not deter these evictors. It is in evidence 
that death has occurred on the roadside 
before totterino; ao'e could find a shelter. 
One tenant sorrowfully tells how he gath- 
ered his family under the roof of a kindly 
neighbor, but was obliged the very next 
day to go to the town for a coffin for his 
dead mother. 

A clergyman states that he administered 
the rites of the Church to a poor woman so 
near death she could not be moved ; the 
roof was taken from the house over her 
head while she was in the unconscious state 
preceding death, and when she passed away 
there was only a winnowing sheet between 
her and the blue vault above. Houses are 
unroofed to prevent the return of the home- 
less wanderers. Sometimes they are burned 
to make assurance doubly sure. 

See the mournful procession at the road- 
side, on the highway, mad with rage, frenzied 
with grief, or dumb with despair. Old men, 



40 Evictions. 

little children, women with babes in arms 
or great with child, are there : the tenant, 
his family, the laborers and their families, 
perhaps a dozen, perhaps two dozen souls. 
These must find shelter among a population 
but little better off than themselves, or go to 
the poor house, or die by the roadside or in 
the sheltering ditch. The tale is so dreadful 
Christian credulity can scarce receive it, but 
" seeing is believing." And this has been 
going on for years. During the last five 
years the Inspector General of Constabulary 
estimates over fifty-seven thousand persons 
to have been thus dispossessed. Within 
the fifty years of Victoria's reign not less 
than four millions have been by these "forms 
of law " turned from their homes. 

What is the final result .f^ Which side 
wins } Usually the landlord, aided by the 
Government ; the statistics given show it ; 
unroofed houses, burned-down houses, un- 
tenanted farms everywhere testify, and the 
depopulation of the country confirms it. In 
former years there was little substantial re- 
sistance; entreaties, tears, frenzied appeals, 
hastily improvised defences were no barrier 



Evictions. 4 1 

to the evicting force. Hundreds were some- 
times driven out in a single day. Mr. Glad- 
stone in 1870 said, " We have made ejectments 
cheap and easy, and notices to quit have 
descended upon the people like snowflakes." 
But the combat has changed ; the success 
of the landlord is now difficult, dangerous 
and expensive. Mr. William O'Brien, in 
the Mitchelstown speech for which he was 
imprisoned, urged the people, through de- 
liberate, systematic resistance by the Plan 
of Campaign, to "make evictions as slow 
and as expensive to the Government as 
possible." 

Evictions fall now and then ; they are 
still hard as hailstones, but they are not 
"cheap and easy"; they are not "thick as 
snowflakes." There are hundreds -of houses 
in Ireland so barricaded that it would take 
months of continued siege with thousands 
of armed men in the midst of a hostile 
country to accomplish the undertaking. 

The people are, with few exceptions, in 
direct antagonism to the police and their 
attempt at enforcement. Much annoyance 
is attempted. Taverns will not lodge them ; 



42 Evictions. 

car drivers will not carry them ; they are 
avoided in the streets as if infected with 
disease. They are jeered at by the pestifer- 
ous " small boy " and sneered at by the 
saucy girl ; old women utter imprecations 
when they pass ; and in one instance a 
whole congregation left the church when a 
few entered to attend mass. The clergy, 
mostly Catholics, are in sympathy and con- 
stant co-operation with the resistance. They 
are at evictions directing the orderly proceed- 
ings of these emergency gatherings. They 
have in some instances been imprisoned for 
refusing to testify of Plan of Campaign pro- 
ceedings of which they had knowledge 
through their professional relations. One 
highly esteemed and greatly honored priest, 
Canon Keller of Youghall, was thus im- 
prisoned. 

Evictions are a well-known procedure 
under all systems of law; they are not pecu- 
liar to Irish administration ; but the system 
of land tenures, landlordism and immemorial 
usage is peculiar. Under systems of injus- 
tice which philanthropy and religion have 
been blind to, and economy and statesman- 



Eviciio7is. 43 

ship were deaf to, the tenant has been ground 
between the millstone of the landlord's avarice 
and his own necessities. The accumulations 
of the years have left before him a mass of 
tyrannies and murderous conditions through 
which he must fight his way or die. He 
chooses to fight. 



CHAPTER IV. 



LANDLORDISM. 



THE American student of the Irish 
agrarian question will fail to com- 
prehend the situation from a legislative, 
political or humanitarian aspect until he 
becomes acquainted with Ireland's historical 
grievances and her unwritten law which 
custom has established from "time out of 
mind." 

The conflict waged for centuries can be 
traced to three fundamental wrongs ; con- 
quest and confiscation, race and creed ani- 
mosities, landlord absenteeism. These are 
the questions which the American philan- 
thropist must study ; this is the problem 
which the English statesman must solve. 

England's conquests of Ireland began 
under Henry ii about the year 1170. He 
set up the system of land tenure which had 
been introduced into England by the Nor- 

44 



La7tdlordism. 45 

mans a hundred years before. The nom- 
inal title to the land was taken from the 
Irish and parcelled out to Englishmen. 
Such of the original possessors as were not 
slain in battle hid in the forests and hills, 
and returned under their unconquered chiefs 
to contend for the soil lately their own, and 
to settle again upon estates vacated by Eng- 
lish colonists who became wearied with the 
continual defence of their newly acquired 
lands. In many cases the English lords 
made common cause with the native popu- 
lation and were in their turn proscribed as 
traitors who had become '' Hibernis ipsis 
Hiberniosis." For centuries a nominal su- 
premacy was maintained, varied often, and 
in different sections of the island, by raids 
and rebellions, as succeeding kings at- 
tempted with more or less severity to main- 
tain England's authority. No apology was 
made for this wholesale confiscation ; the 
right of might was sufficient warrant. 

Yet at the beginning of the Tudor line 
the disgraceful incompetence of the Dublin 
government and the utter neglect of the 
authorities in London had resulted in a 



46 Landlordism. 

state of things in which the nominal " pale " 
of English sovereignty was limited to the 
immediate neighborhood of Dublin, while 
some of the great towns of the South were 
left actually to engage in private war. 

Elizabeth in her reign, and Cromwell in 
his protectorate, entered afresh on wars of 
conquest and confiscation ; the later, known 
as the Cromwellian Settlement, exceeded all 
its predecessors in the amount and extent of 
the desolation which followed. Five sixths ' 
of the people perished or emigrated. Those 
who remained fought with exasperation, 
when they had strength to fight, or by 
secret organization sought revenge by assas- 
sination and fire. The landlords of the 
present day, whose names have become 
familiar through tales of recent evictions 
and present state of siege, hold their titles 
by a chain welded through centuries on 
these anvils of conquest and confiscation. 
The Ponsonby estate at Youghall, Cork 
County, illustrates this. The section of 
country now included in the counties of 
Waterford and Cork was part of a grant 
given by Elizabeth to Sir Walter Raleigh: 



Landlordism. 47 

the house where he lived, the yew-trees 
under which he smoked Indian tobacco 
(much to the terror of his servant) are still 
to be seen and are often visited by the tour- 
ist. From this proud knight of the Virgin 
Queen the land passed to the great Earl 
of Cork, and from him to the ancestors of 
the present owner, Charles William Talbot 
Ponsonby. 

It is recorded that England's first con- 
quest of Ireland was at the instigation of 
Pope Adrian iv, who, in pursuance of the 
theor}^ of Christian sovereignty encouraged 
by Rome, claimed that "ail lands upon 
which the Gospel of Christ had dawned did 
of right belong to the holy Roman Church/' 
Henry 11, not adverse to conquest for its 
own sake, availed himself of this added 
authority, and waged his wars in the name 
of the faith. 

When, however, England at the Refor- 
mation became Protestant, Ireland still 
adhered to Rome, and the struggle to main- 
tain English dominance was aided by the 
mockery of religious propaganda. The 
slaughter of Catholics by the sword, or 



48 Landlordism. 

by inhumanities too revolting to narrate, 
marked the early stages of this prosecution ; 
later, when humanity sickened with the 
sight of these rivers of human gore, more 
indirect and refined processes of extermina- 
tion were applied. Hallam says of these: 
" To have exterminated the Catholics by the 
sword, or expelled them like the Moriscos of 
Spain, would have been little more repug- 
nant to justice and humanity, but incompar- 
ably more politic." Numberless disabilities, 
educational and industrial, were laid upon 
Catholics. Queen Anne banished from Ire- 
land all Catholic teachers and sentenced 
them to death in case of return. Because 
wealthy persons evaded this law by sending 
their children to the schools of the Conti- 
nent this was forbidden under pain of for- 
feiture of lands to the Crown. A priest, on 
pain of death, could not marry a Catholic to 
a Protestant. A Protestant woman who 
should marry a Catholic forfeited her estate 
to the next Protestant heir-at-law. Catho- 
lics were excluded from the liberal profes- 
sions, except that of medicine. They could 
not until the year 1782, acquire landed prop- 



Landlordism, 49 

erty. They were disfranchised until 1793. 
They were ineligible to Parliament until the 
year 1829. It would be impossible to set 
forth the magnitude of this oppression or to 
detail its pettiness. It was met in old times 
by persecution of the same spirit, though 
not to the same extent, by Catholic out- 
rages on Protestants, but these are now 
unknown ; in fact the Catholic municipal 
towns are constantly electing Protestants to 
the mayoralty and town council, although 
the converse is rarely true. 

The Government has been behind Protest- 
antism ; retaliation, revenge and bigotry have 
been the only intrenchments from wdiich 
Catholicism could wage its battles. 

These ever-present animosities have con- 
tinually hardened the heart of the Protestant 
landlord and embittered the feelings of the 
Catholic tenant. Definite and general at- 
tempts to exterminate the Irish race or to 
drive them from the larger and better por- 
tions of the country and to substitute an 
English and Scotch peasantry, with English 
laws, English customs and English tenures, 
were adopted as a settled policy in the reign 



50 ^ Landlordism. 

of Elizabeth. Up to that time an actual pos- 
session of the land had satisfied the hungry 
invader; he was willing it should be tilled 
by those of the native Irish whose broken 
spirit and abject condition made them more 
or less submissive to the conquerors. But 
English colonists living in detached sections 
of the country soon found themselves unable 
to maintain possession under the continual 
menace of the wandering Irish, who hid in 
the mountains and still rallied to the call of 
their chiefs. The only alternative was to 
exterminate by famine, fire and sword these 
dangerous people. 

The story of this process of extermination 
is simply horrible. 

While Shakespeare and Spenser were mak- 
ing memorable the literature of the Eliza- 
bethan era, England's soldiers were filling 
Ireland with " carcasses and ashes." 

In 1576 one Malby, the President of Con- 
naught, made the following ofiicial report : — 

" At Christmas I marched into their ter- 
ritory [Shan Burke's] and, finding courteous 
dealinor with them had like to have cut 
my throat, I thought good to take another 



Landlordism. 5 1 

course, and so, with determination to con- 
sume them with fire and sword, sparing 
neither old nor young, I entered their mount- 
ains. I burnt all their corn and houses, and 
committed to the sword all that could be 
found, when were slain at that time above 
sixty of their best men, and among them 
the best leaders they had. This was Shan 
Burke's country. Then I burnt Ulick Burke s 
country. In like manner I assaulted a cas- 
tle, when the garrison surrendered. I put 
them to the misericordia of my soldiers. 
They were all slain. Thence I went on, 
sparing none which came in my way, which 
cruelty did so amaze their followers that they 
could not tell where to bestow themselves. 
It was all done in rain and frost and storm, 
journeys in such weather bringing them the 
sooner to submission. They are humble 
enough now, and will yield to any terms we 
like to offer them." 

Is it strange that the descendants of 
these men, thus persecuted, who have passed 
the story down from father to son, should 
hate the name of England ; is it any wonder 
that the peasant w^ho through fire and sword 



52 Landlordism. 

and famine has kept the holding of his 
fathers, should to the very death resist the 
writ of eviction and the armed force that 
executes it ? 

A quarter of a century later the Lord 
Deputy writes : " I have often said and writ- 
ten it is famine that must consume the Irish, 
as our swords and other endeavors worked 
not that speedy effect which is expected. 
Hunger would be a better, because a speedier, 
weapon to employ against them than the 
sword. I burned all along the lough within 
four miles of Dungannon and killed one hun- 
dred people, sparing none, of what quality, 
age or sex soever, besides many burned to 
death. We killed m.an, woman and child, 
horse, beast and whatever we could find.'' 
While the echo of these terrible words still 
lingers, hear the cold irony, the heartless 
comment of the English aristocrat who says, 
" These Irish are a discontented, disorderly 
people ; they are never satisfied ! " But to 
his haughty highness there comes the thun- 
dering answer of the English democracy: 
" By our help he shall be satisfied ; he shall 
possess the soil he has tilled ; he shall build 



Landlordism. 53 

a state and govern it himself. Christian 
civiHzation answers, it ought so to be." 

More potential in producing hostile rela- 
tions and distressing conditions than origin 
of title or race and creed animosities is land- 
lord absenteeism, which has always been an 
agent of evil in Ireland« Underneath all 
differences of race or creed or accidents of 
birth there exists the common human tie 
which, without active volition on the part of 
either landlord or tenant, would have bound 
their common interests. 

As dew-drops on the cup of the lily and 
the leaf of the wayside weed mingle when 
drawn by the sun to the hanging cloud and 
return to the earth in blessing, so these 
human lives if brought within certain radii 
of influence would have o:enerated throucrh 
the operation of involuntary laws certain cen- 
tripetal and centrifugal forces which would 
have held the solar social system in har- 
monious operation. But the landlord was 
beyond the bounds of the system. Humani- 
tarian laws had no chance to do their amelio- 
ratinsf work. 

He does not care for Ireland. He values 



54 Landlordis7n, 

property there merely as it enables present 
tenants to pay present rents. He does not 
live there, nor spend his money there. When 
the Irish tenant in summer is toiling at 
ploughing and sowing, mowing and reaping, 
or ditching and draining, the landlord is in 
the mountains of Switzerland or at a Conti- 
nental watering place. 

When the tenant in winter — his little 
crop gathered, his few potatoes dug — is 
driven by snow and ice under his thatched 
roof and within his little hut, and when he 
and his family, and perhaps the faithful 
donkey, his beast of burden, make common 
cause in seeking warmth from the glowing 
peat upon the hearth, the landlord is in 
Paris or in London spending the money 
gathered by his resident agent from these 
poor people. Even the few resident land- 
lords do not make common cause with th^ 
people. They live in castles, within wooded 
domains, surrounded by high walls. These 
homes are furnished with great luxury, but 
not as Irish growth. The carpets, the furni- 
ture, the pictures, the books, the v/ardrobe, 
the tailor, the dressmaker, the bootmaker, 



Landlordism, 55 

the milliner — these are French or English, 
almost never Irish. Even family servants 
are often brought from beyond the channels. 

The money actually taken out of the 
country by this absenteeism is enormous. 
It is estimated to be at present about six 
million pounds per annum. Think what 
this would do in internal improvements, in 
industrial or mercantile investment ! The 
number of absentees at the present time is 
estimated to be nearly eight thousand. 

If the individual energy of these men 
owning more than one half of the arable 
land of Ireland were applied in public enter- 
prises, what an impetus would be given its 
material prosperity. If the personal moral 
influence of these gentlemen of education 
and leisure were felt in educational and phil- 
anthropic culture, how much more elevated 
might the social tone become. 

Absenteeism has always been Ireland's 
curse. The early kings desired to prevent it 
by compulsory legislation. Residence was 
required for certain periods in each year, and 
increased taxes were required of absentees. 
These coercive measures were of little effect 



56 Landlo7^dism. 

beyond that of collecting a few pounds rev- 
enue, and the whole attempted remedy was 
a legislative farce. 

It is significant that rack-renting and 
evictions have, with a few exceptions, been 
most common and distressing on the estates 
of absentees. 

Mr. Froude, who is not by any means an 
Irish partisan, says of this unnatural system 
under which Ireland has long groaned : — 

" The absentee landlords of Ireland had 
neither community of interest with the peo- 
ple nor sympathy of race. They had no 
fear of provoking their resentment, for they 
lived beyond their reach. They had no de- 
sire for their welfare, for as individuals they 
were ignorant of their existence. They re- 
garded their Irish estates as the sources of 
their income ; their only desire was to extract 
the most out of them which the soil could 
be made to yield ; and they cared no more 
for the souls and the bodies of those who 
were in fact committed to their charge than 
the owners of a West Indian plantation for 
the herds of slaves whose backs were blister- 
ing in the cane fields." 



Landlordism. 57 

Out of these confiscations, animosities and 
absenteeisms, has grown up by custom and 
English law a landlord and tenant code, 
wholly differing in spirit, indeed, a complete 
inversion of that which prevails elsewhere. 
Improvements, such as dwelling houses, farm 
buildings, fences, draining and the like, are in 
England and America built by the land- 
lord; there is also an implied covenant 
that these betterments shall be kept in 
needed repair at his expense ; shall be 
replaced by him if burned or otherwise 
destroyed. 

In Ireland the tenant makes all improve- 
ments ; the landlord does nothing. The 
tenant builds at his own cost, and keeps 
in repair the dwelling, the outhouses, the 
fences, etc. 

This has been the custom since the 
times of confiscation, when the lands were 
given to Englishmen who, rather than live 
in Ireland and care for the booty given by a 
conquering invader, left the estates in pos- 
session of native Irish peasants, being satis- 
fied to obtain what income they could from 
that which cost them nothing. 



58 Landlordism. 

As the tenant, impelled by the necessities 
of existence, improved the farm from time 
to time, the rent was raised proportionately. 
It is admitted by all intelligent judges that 
landlords in Ireland receive greater rent for 
farms improved by tenants than English* and 
Scotch landlords receive for farms improved 
by themselves. 

The landlords of Ireland have received 
more actual rent money for the last ten years 
than the value of the amount of produce 
raised off the land. The children and other 
relatives in America have sent large sums 
to the old folks at home to pay the landlord's 
claim, and the father and sons of the family 
have worked in the mines or other indus- 
tries of England and Wales and earned the 
money to pay for the poor shelter of the little 
holding. 

Not only does the Irish landlord receive 
unconscionable rents, but is aided by special 
legislation in collecting it ; he may evict his 
tenant for non-payment by a summary pro- 
ceeding peculiar to the Irish system. He is 
further aided by a penal code wath provisions 
framed for his special benefit ; he may with- 



Landlordism. 59 

out the intervention of any court call to his 
assistance officers of the Crown, armed con- 
stabulary, and even Her Majesty's regular 
troops. Such is Irish landlordism ; base 
and wicked in inception, oppressive and 
merciless in continuance, murderous in 
results. 



II 



CHAPTER V. 



POLITICAL DESPOTISM. 



POLITICAL despotism is the great con- 
spirator in the crime against Ireland. 
It stands indicted with landlordism, oppres- 
sive taxation, industrial death, religious per- 
secution, chronic insurrection, and is itself 
the assassin of constitutional liberty. 

England's early supremacy in Ireland was 
sustained by force. She employed the sword, 
fire, famine and common butchery. She 
drove the native Irish into the most sterile 
parts of the country, and kept them there 
on pain of death. " To Hell or Connaught " 
was the shibboleth of that barbaric age. 

The beautiful Shannon, in its circling 
course to the sea, became a dead-line to the 
fugitives. When the thirst for conquest had 
been assuaged by surfeit of slaughter, and 
the people of England had secured for them- 
selves more clearly defined constitutional 

60 



Political Despotism, 6 1 

powers, the form of despotism in Ireland 
changed. There was not less despotism ; 
its modes were more refined, though not 
less oppressive. The philanthropic endeav- 
ors of friends of Ireland in the British Par- 
liament did from time to time attempt 
remedial legislation of tenant wrongs; but 
despotism personified in landed aristocracy 
usually strangled these attempts. Very few 
of the many bills introduced ever become 
laws. Between the tenant and needed relief 
appeared the ever-present intervener. The 
land bills recently enacted, presumably in 
the interest of the tenant, contain provisions 
somewhat equitable ; but it is not every one 
who can comply with their conditions and 
is able to bear the expense of the land 
court; thus the larger number of those most 
needing relief are unable to secure the ad- 
vantages of the bills. A commission was 
instituted to sit as a court and to fix a ''judi- 
cial rent.'' 

This commission was appointed by Dublin 
Castle, and is said to have been largely made 
up of its political partisans, the landlord 
class or their dependents. It soon appeared 



62 Political Despotism. 

that the administration of the law was in 
the interest of the landlord, not of the 
tenant. The commission made its reduc- 
tions on the basis of the clearly proved esti- 
mate that the land had not produced even 
in good times the value of the old rents. 
These rents had been met mainly by moneys 
received from Irish emigrants in America. 
Lord Dufferin states that sum to have been 
upward of thirteen million pounds between 
the years 1848 and 1864. 

During recent years remittances directly 
to tenants for the payment of rent have 
largely decreased. A more intelligent and 
effective means of aiding the Irish cause than 
supporting English landlords by the payment 
of exorbitant rents has been devised. 

An illustration of this, and of the devotion 
of Irish children to the old folks at home, 
recently came to our knowledge. A lad left 
County Cork for Boston ten years ago. He 
worked at his trade — harness-making — and 
regularly sent to his father for rent money 
twenty pounds a year. On a recent visit 
to the place of his birth he found the old 
man in the same wretched hut, in poverty 



Political Despotism. 63 

and rags. Every shilling of the two hun- 
dred pounds he had sent had gone into the 
landlord's coffers. With an oath, registered 
in the just court of heaven, he said: " Father, 
I'll take care of you, but the landlords of 
Ireland shall never have another dollar of 
my hard earnings." There was one more 
eviction, and then the old man went with 
his sturdy son to America. This failure of 
supplies from America, and the universal 
decrease in agricultural values, combined at 
the same time to render tenants even more 
unable to pay the reduced rent than they 
had been to satisfy the former more exorbi- 
tant demand of the landlord. Of many a 
tenant might it be said, " the last state of that 
man was worse than the first." The land 
bill of the year 1887 has as yet (January, 
1888) made no record; from it the tenant 
hopes little, because the commission, already 
appointed, originated from and is responsible 
to Dublin Castle. Evictions are still the 
order of the day, and the tenant s '' holding " 
is as precarious as ever. There is a signifi- 
cance almost pathetic in the term denoting 
a tenant's occupancy. 



64 Political Despotism, 

It is not his **farm," his "estate," his 
" place," his " ranch," it is his '' holding." 
He does not take root as does the tree or 
garden shrub ; he " holds " like an ivy to the 
wall, a lichen to the rock ; he clings as do 
these prolific natives of his Emerald Isle. 

An Irishman's love of hearth and home 
and country is the strongest passion of his 
nature ; the landlord has traded upon it. 

It is told of one of these, a poor old fel- 
low, who had reared a large family upon a 
little patch, and was reduced to turnips and 
salt as their only food, that when urged to 
send his oldest sons to America, with the 
prospect of soon following himself when 
better times came to them, he answered 
with spirit, *' No ; I'll never go ; isn't this 
my home; wasn't I born here and my fathers 
before me .^ I'll eat turnips while I have 
them, and then I'll live on the flower of 
the furze ; but I'll never leave : I'll die here 
as my fathers did." This man had only 
a " holding," for which he paid an annual 
rental of over a pound an acre ; he and his 
fathers had wrested from the soil and gath- 
ered by labor in other places this tribute to 



Political Despotism. 65 

the landlord's greed ; but they had no deed 
or lease, only a " holding.'* 

A German publicist, endeavoring to find 
a word in his own tongue to express the 
peculiar disabilities of the Irish tenant-at- 
will on his holding, said, " Why not call him 
' the hunt-off-able ? ' " (Wegjagdbau.) This 
tenant in America might claim the rights 
of a squatter sovereign; in Ireland he is 
the victim of squatter serfdom. The inten- 
tion of Parliament in the recent land bills 
was doubtless good, though weakened by 
the administration of Dublin Castle, and 
further compromised by contemporaneous 
coercion acts. While the tenant Is being 
invited to Dublin Castle Land Court from 
Dublin Castle issues proclamation after proc- 
lamation assailing the right of free speech 
and public meeting, and summons after 
summons of arrest of Irish patriots. It 
denies to these the constitutional riQ:ht of 
trial by jury, and by summary proceedings 
consigns them to the felon's cell. 

While with one hand it offers the olive 
branch of a doubtful land bill, with the right 
hand of its power it arms fourteen thousand 



66 Political Despotism. 

constabulary to assist the landlord in evict- 
ions for non-payment of arrears impossible 
to meet. As they " remember Mitchels- 
town " (according to Mr. Gladstone's appeal) 
their dimmed eyes can scarcely see the olive 
branch. The presence of an armed con- 
stabulary is a constant reminder that they 
are subjects of a foreign Government, in 
spirit if not in fact ; this becomes the more 
exasperating when they find out that they 
are taxed an enormous sum to support this ^ 
constabulary, whose chief service is to en- 
force the claims of absent English land- 
lords. 

In a certain area of less than ten miles 
square, in a quiet section of the country con- 
taining less than ten thousand people, this 
expense to the rate payers of Great Britain 
and Ireland is over sixty thousand pounds 
per year. England should remember that 
one of the grievances which caused her the 
loss of the American colonies was that she 
quartered soldiers upon the people in time of 
peace. Is it likely that her subjects a cent- 
ury later will bear without aggressive pro- 
test this quarterage upon their rent rolls } 



Political Despotism. 67 

The political despotism of the present will 
do well to steer clear of these landmarks of 
history. 

Tw^o centuries ao'o Ireland's wool and 
linen manufactories formed no inconsider- 
able part of her resources. These, with 
exports of cattle and sheep, threatened ma- 
terially to compete with like industries in the 
English market. Here again political des- 
potism becomes an intervener in the inter- 
est of English capitalists and against Irish 
subjects. By definite and sweeping acts of 
Parliament in restraint of Irish trade and 
commerce the o:rowino; industries of Ireland 
were destroyed. 

Not only did despotism make itself felt in 
materialities, it sought to lay an embargo on 
the consciences of men. Civil and political 
disabilities w^ere laid upon Catholics, and 
religious persecution even unto death was 
authorized under forms of law. Not till the 
time of the present generation has there 
been the same toleration of religious opin- 
ion in Ireland as in Enoland. That Ireland 
has been for many years in a state of 
chronic insurrection cannot be denied. The 



68 Political Despotism. 

massacres of 1641 and of 1798 stain the 
page of history; the record of young Ire- 
land, of Phoenix Clubs, of Fenian raids, of 
Land Leagues are inseparably interwoven 
in the history of the country. The careful 
student can not, however, fail to discover 
that these movements were the results of 
pre-existing conditions ; they were not the 
cause of those conditions. Whenever the 
work of secret organizations matured in 
breaches of the peace there had been im- 
mediate or proximate assaults, real or sup- 
posed, from a despotic government. 

The British Government has seemed blind 
to the political truth, that free discussion 
and untrammeled organization for redress of 
grievances are the necessary safety valves 
of public order. By repressive and despotic 
class legislation it has become particeps 
criminis in numerous social outbreaks, until 
now by the grim irony of retributive justice 
England finds the path of her own progress 
impeded by a mass of rubbish, accumulated 
from the injustice of centuries, and is obliged 
to set herself to a careful consideration of 
the equities in Lxland's cause. 



Political Despotism, 6g 

Her House of Commons sat for months 
in controversy over the details of coercion 
measures to the utter suspension of Imperial 
legislation. England, Scotland and Wales in 
the name of their neglected interests protest; 
protesting for themselves and for their own 
interests, they have come to study the whole 
question from the broad plane of philan- 
thropic statesmanship. The realization comes 
with force to many of their clearest thinkers, 
that the present Tory Government by its 
coercive policy in Ireland is establishing a 
precedent of violence to constitutional rights, 
as threatening to English liberty in the future 
as it is outrageous and insulting to Irish 
Nationalism by its recent exercise in the 
trial and conviction of William O'Brien. 
It would be impossible to believe Christian 
England knowingly guilty of Irish outrages 
in legislation and administration, except by 
considering the nation as consisting of two 
independent and sometimes antagonistic ele- 
ments — the English people and the English 
Government. 

The English people are true to the com- 
mon instincts of humanity; they love jus- 



JO Political Despotism. 

tice, they mean to do equity ; but they them- 
selves have not been long self-governed, and 
have been absorbed in reform measures per- 
taining to their own economic grievances. 
The extension of the franchise to its present 
limits is very recent, and is still much incum- 
bered. The spirit of aristocracy is the same 
everywhere ; it has been bridled in England ; 
it has taken the bit in its teeth in Ireland. 
The masses of the people who now rise 
under the majestic name — English Democ- 
racy — have only lately had power to mate- 
rially influence governmental policy; they 
have known little of that policy in the sister 
country, from which they were separated by 
stormy channels, and by difference of race 
and creed. The English Government, as 
distinguished from the English people, has 
been obliged to sustain its policy of conquest 
by further acts of confiscation and coercion, 
or to retire from the possession of the island, 
or to give to the people some such form of 
independent local government as is outlined 
in Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule measure. 
The Tory Government, on its own account 
and for its own peace, would doubtless set 



Political Despotism. 71 

the island adrift; but the integrity of the 
Empire would not allow that ; it hesitates to 
give a loca.1 government with greater powers 
than England, Scotland and Wales possess 
or ask ; it talks in grandiloquent phrase about 
the " integrity of the Empire " being endan- 
gered by Ireland's demands, and fills the air 
with vaporous fears of intestine strifes and 
disgraceful misrule if England's protection (?) 
in minutest detail should be removed. 

What course, then, does the Government 
pursue ? Just what all falling despotisms in 
government compel : It assumes the names 
and forms of constitutional government; its 
" Irish members " sit in the House of Com- 
mons, but are powerless to secure legislation 
in the interest of their own constituents ; it 
claims to administer justice according to 
English law, but its courts in Ireland exer- 
cise judicial functions under special acts of 
Parliament arainst which Eno;lishmen would 
have rebelled. Meanwhile, the people of 
England, in the exercise of new powders and 
by attrition vv^ith democracies elsewhere, de- 
mand more for themselves and are keener 
to sec the rightfulness of IrelancFs claim and 



72 Political Despotism, 

to recognize her cause as kindred to their 
own. English Liberals and Irish Parnelites, 
under the great statesman Gladstone, will 
ultimately secure not only Home Rule for 
Ireland, but a triumphant democracy wher- 
ever the British flag floats. 



CHAPTER VI. 



INDUSTRIAL DESPOTISM. 



WHAT shall we eat, what shall we 
drink and wherewithal shall we tj>e 
clothed ? is a universal question ; the char- 
acter of the answer given is the test of the 
civilization of any age or country. Ireland's 
desolation appears in the answer which she 
gives. Potatoes, whiskey, rags ; these are 
the ensign of her woe. An intelligent co- 
operation with Providence, in soil, climate 
and natural resource, guarantees the neces- 
sary provision for human needs. The igno- 
rant or spiritless co-operation by the Irish 
people, the forcible repression or prohibi- 
tion of co-operation by the British Govern- 
ment, these causes, singly or in unison, 
have thwarted the benign designs of the 
" Heavenly Father, who knoweth that his 
children have need of these things/' 

That we may the better understand Eng- 
land's industrial and commercial legislation 

73 



74 Industrial Despotism. 

concerning Ireland, and know the causes 
which directly or indirectly operated to 
almost wholly extinguish the industries of 
Ireland, we will divide the last four hundred 
years into four periods, these being marked 
by distinctive legislative policies. Credulity 
will be taxed in receiving the attested facts 
of history, and philanthropy Vv^ill be pained 
at their illustration of " man's inhumanity 
to man " underneath this' cloak of so-called 
commercial legislation. 

First Period — Industrial Growth. From 
Poyning's Law, 1495, to Amended Naviga- 
tion Act, 1663. 

Second Period — Industrial Decay and 
Death. From 1663 to the Independent 
Irish Parliament, known as Grattan s Parlia- 
ment, 1782. 

Third Period — Industrial Resurrection. 
From 1782 to the Union, 1800. 

Fourth Period — Industrial Decline. From 
1800 to the present time. 

First period — 1495 to 1663. During this 
period English and Irish industries grew 
side by side, both stimulated by natural 
resources and growing demands, and both 



Industrial Despotis^n, 75 

equally protected from the free imports of 
other nations. Her chief industries were 
woollen (fustian, flannels, broadcloths), linen, 
silk, hemp, sugar, hides and leather, soap, 
candles and salt. Cattle, sheep and horses 
were largely exported. In this even-handed 
industrial race Ireland well held her own, 
and threatened to seriously compete with 
the wealth and commercial enterprise of 
Eno'land. 

Second Period — 1663 to 1782. In the 
amended Navigation Act of 1663 Ireland 
was left out. Lord North said of it : " The 
first commercial restriction was laid on Ire- 
land not directly, but by a side wind and by 
deductive interpretation." The prohibitions 
of this act were not, however, left to " deduc- 
tive interpretation." The act prohibited all 
exports from Ireland to the colonies, and 
the importation of Irish cattle into England. 
Subsequently an act declared such importa- 
tion to be "a publick and common nuisance." 
In 1670 all importation to Ireland from the 
English plantations of sugar, tobacco, cot- 
ton-wool, indigo, ginger, fustic or other native 
dyeing wood was prohibited. 



76 Industrial Despotism. 

The energy driven back from trade sought 
exercise in cultivation of manufactures. For- 
bidden to export live cattle into England, 
they were killed and sent over as salted 
meats. An Act of Parliament soon pro- 
hibited this. The hides of the animals be- 
ing still free, these were exported until — 
still suspicious and watchful — British dealers 
complained, and these were headed back to 
the hills where they were grown. Irish in- 
genuity, still contending for an outlet, worked 
up the hides into leather and thus bade fair 
to outwit the cupidity of English trade. 
Alas ! Parliament relentlessly prohibited the 
exportation of leather ! This procession of 
prohibitions, sounding the trumpet of Eng- 
lish commercial despotism, loses even the 
pomp of power and assumes the fretful snarl 
of conscious decrepitude when we learn that 
candles were also under the ban of this riv- 
alry, and not an Irish " tallow glim '' could 
find its way across the channel. The woollen 
and linen industries, because of their natu- 
ral pre-emption and early establishment, 
were soon the objects of jealous assault, first 
in the form of disabilities and later in actual 



Industrial Despotism. jj 

prohibitions. It was unblushingly declared 
that this leo^islation was demanded because 
England's woollen manufactures suffered. 
There seems to have been no sense of 
moral obliQ-ation in the trade conscience of 
that era, and by an act of William iii the 
woollen industry of Ireland was extinguished, 
and twenty thousand manufacturers left the 
island. 

In this high-handed extinction of Ireland's 
natural and most productive manufacture, 
there was promised, in mitigation of damage, 
an advantage to the linen industry. Scotch 
Protestants were invited to Ireland under 
the specious plea that they should be 
afforded every possible assistance, and that 
Irish linen should be protected in the exclu- 
sive supply of the British market Lord 
North says of this compact, " it was no 
sooner made tjjian it was violated by Eng- 
land, for, instead of prohibiting foreign 
linens, duties were laid and collected, so far 
from amounting to a prohibition on the im- 
port of the Dutch, German and east country 
linen manufactures that those manufact- 
ures have been able, after having the duties 



78 Industrial Despotism. 

imposed on them by the British Parliament, 
to undersell Ireland in Great Britain and 
the West Indies." Thus it was that Ire- 
land's industries were pursued with relent- 
less pertinacity, until the most searching 
scrutiny fails to discover a single one which 
was not fettered or prohibited by British 
Parliamentary acts, and this hostile legisla- 
tion not only affected her relations with 
England, but with the commerce of the 
world. The flag of Ireland might wave in 
holiday splendor over the castles of her con- 
quered princes, but was declared a commer- 
cial alien on the high seas. 

The reader of Irish history during this 
period will learn that Ireland had then her 
own Parliament, and he may inquire why, 
then, did she hang as a suitor on English 
legislation ; why did she not herself protect 
her own industries ? why did she not go 
farther and meet England's aggressions with 
retaliatory measures? Simply because she 
could not. Her legislature, though a Par- 
liament in name, had little representative 
character or executive power. 

It was composed largely of Protestant 



Industrial Despotism. 79 

landlords. Political disabilities imposed by 
England, excluded the masses from repre- 
sentation, and even if it had been otherwise 
and the undivided voice of Parliament had 
sought industrial protection through Par- 
liamentary acts, these acts would have been 
vetoed by the British Parliament or the 
Privy Council. " Poyning's Act," by which 
the Irish Parliament exercised its mock 
functions, expressly declared that no act 
should be adopted without the approval of 
the King of England or his Privy Council. 
In the year 1771 the heads of a bill were 
introduced " to prevent corn from being 
made into whiskey and to put some re- 
straint on the vice of drunkenness,'' which 
was increasing. The Lord Lieutenant of the 
day said " the whiskey shops were ruining 
the peasantry and the workmen. There 
was an earnest and general desire to limit 
them.'' " The Whiskey bill," says Mr. 
Froude, " was rejected because the Treasury 
(British) could not spare a few thousand 
pounds which were levied upon drunkenness." 
Thus poor Ireland, drunk to the health of 
the British revenue, garroted by Poyning's 



8o Industrial Despotism. 

Act, robbed by Birmingham and Manchester, 
was in as deplorable a condition as the 
"certain man '' who journeyed from Jerusa- 
lem to Jericho. Thank God ! the Good 
Samaritan from Hawarden Castle is passing 

by. 

Third Period — 1782 to 1800. An Inde- 
pendent Parliament had long been the desire 
of Irish patriots. Henry Grattan was, more 
than any other, the champion of this new 
creation ; it bears his name. Ireland at 
once opened her own ports to such of her 
manufactures as still survived. She felt 
through her whole commercial being the in- 
spiration of a new life ; but she did not at 
once turn upon England with retaliatory 
legislation. She waited to receive proffers 
of reciprocal intercourse. England was slow 
and surly, and at last yielded grudgingly some 
slight compromises. Then it was that Ire- 
land, finally aroused, commenced legitimate 
retaliation. The marvelous growth of her 
manufactures and trade justified the dream 
of her patriots and the fear of her enemies. 
Secretary Foster said in 1785, three years 
after the liberation of Irish industries, " Brit- 



hidustrial Despotism. 8i 

ain imports annually two million five hundred 
thousand pounds of our products, all, or 
nearly all, duty free, and we import a million 
of hers, and raise a revenue on almost every 
article of it.'' In 1799, according to Mr. Pitt, 
" the imports from Great Britain were about 
the same, but the exports from Ireland to 
Britain had swelled to nearly six millions." 
Lord Clare, who was not very friendly to 
the Irish people, said, " There is not a 
nation on the face of the habitable globe 
which had advanced in cultivation, in manu- 
factures, with the same rapidity in the same 
period — legislative independence — as Ire- 
land." 

Is it any wonder that the people of this 
country sit in the midst of their wrecked 
industries, behold their dilapidated factories, 
their silent mills, and bless the name ^of 
Gladstone and Home Rule, even as they 
revere the memory of Grattan and the days 
of legislative independence 1 

Fourth Period — 1 800 to the present. The 
Legislative union of Great Britain and Ire- 
land was effected in the year 1800. Lecky 
says of it: ''It is a simple and unexagger- 



82 Industrial Despotism. 

ated statement of the fact that in the entire 
history of representative government there 
is no instance of corruption having been 
apphed on so large a scale and with such 
audacious effrontery." 

Mr. John F'oster, the Speaker of the Irish 
House of Commons, in opposing the articles 
of union which set forth the commercial 
relations of the two countries, said: " They 
lower all protecting duties and expose the 
infant manufactures of Ireland (which the 
Irish ParHament had begun to protect) to 
the overwhelming competition of the great 
capital and long-established skill and ability 
of England. No less than seventy articles 
of our manufacture would be thus injured, 
and our cotton manufactures in particular, in 
which we had begun to make most promising 
advances, would be nearly ruined." This 
prophecy was fulfilled. Excepting only the 
linen trade of the North and a few scattered 
woollen mills, there are no industries in Ire- 
land. 

The policy long ago announced by Lord 
Stafford has found ample operation under 
the Union. " I am of opinion," said that 



Industrial Despotism. 8 3 

lord, writing from Ireland to Charles i in 
1634, "that all wisdom advises to keep this 
kingdom as much subordinate and depend- 
ent upon England as is possible, and hold- 
ing them from the manufacture of wool, and 
then enforcing them to fetch their clothing 
from thence, and to take their salt from the 
king (being that which preserves and gives 
value to all their native staple commodities), 
how can they depart from us without naked- 
ness and beggary? '' ^ 

From the mass of England's tyrannies 
toward Ireland it is somewhat difficult to 
distinguish those which are purely economic, 
those which relate to racial and religious 
intolerance, and such as are overt and aggres- 
sive acts of political despotism. The pall of 
oppression is woven of many threads ; the 
chain of bondage is welded of many links. 
Neither of these could alone have crushed 
this country ; each was a bulwark of the 
other. Religious persecution could not have 
existed if through equal religious toleration 
those of the Catholic faith had been allowed 
to sit in the British Parliament. Neither 
could England have enforced trade and com- 



84 Industrial Despotism. 

mercial servitude among the Irish people if 
they had at that time been under Home Rule. 
These conditions of political despotism and 
religious persecution so educated English 
thought and debauched the English con- 
science that it was no shock to her sense of 
justice to rob Ireland of her trade and com- 
merce. It was easy to make of the political 
serf and the excommunicated heretic a beg- 
gar also. This England did. " He that 
breaketh one commandment is guilty of 
them all.'' 

That these economic relations may be 
clearly understood, let us draw an illustra- 
tion from current American economic life. 

The energetic industrial life of the new 
South finds illustration in Georgia cotton 
manufactories and Alabama iron works. 
These already assume proportions which 
prophesy they will soon be entered in the 
competitive race with Massachusetts and 
Pennsylvania. Every well wisher of his 
country rejoices that, by this enlarged source 
of supplies, material advantage must come 
to the American consumer. The heart of 
the patriot is cheered in the contemplation 



Indiistrial Despotism. 85 

and present realization of the fact that trade 
and commerce, in their manifold ramifica- 
tions, shall more closely unite the North and 
South in social and religious life, and educa- 
ional and philanthropic endeavor. 

But suppose the government at Washing- 
ton had the disposition and the power, at 
this time, to exclude Georgia and Alabama 
from the benefits of such reciprocal com- 
mercial relations with foreign powers as 
are secured by treaties ; suppose these two 
States, by the very promise of their success, 
were marked as targets of industrial assault, 
and that they, without the power to pro- 
tect by duties their own manufactures, Vi^ere 
obliged to compete with the protected and 
bountied industries of Massachusetts and 
Pennsylvania ; and suppose the Congress of 
the United States — adding insult to injury 
— should prohibit any exportation of cotton 
or iron from those States! The pen wearies, 
the tongue tires in giving expression to such 
an hypothesis ! And yet such a course of 
injustice, robbery and industrial slaughter 
would be but the type of what England has 
done with Ireland. 



86 Industrial Despotism. 

Let it be remembered when studying the 
hypothetical and the historical results of 
"free trade" and ''protection" that English 
industries were planted, nurtured and well 
established under a protective tariff, and 
even bounties, before the adoption of the 
present free trade policy. 

Is there any sequence, or is it mere coin- 
cidence, that England's free trade policy was 
not adopted until Irish industries were de- 
stroyed and Irish nationality was well-nigh 
crushed ; and Ireland's population of from 
five to eight millions, afforded an enforced, 
but ready, continual and convenient market 
for the manufactures of Manchester, Birm- 
ingham and Leeds ? The cities of Belfast, 
Dublin and Cork were no longer shipping 
places for Irish exports, but were ports of 
entry and storehouses of English goods for 
Irish consumers. Is it inquired how could 
poverty-stricken Ireland afford any consid- 
erable market for manufactures of any 
kind 1 Let it be remembered that Ireland, 
though in herself poor, has received for 
years a steady income of millions of dollars 
every year from America. A high English 



Industrial Despotism. 87 

authority estimates that up to a recent date 
this sum was equal to ten million dollars per 
annum. Much of this vast sum has been 
contributed by Irish servant-girls in the 
kitchens and nurseries of New York, Boston 
and Philadelphia, and by factory and mill 
operatives among the protected industries 
of New England and Pennsylvania. These 
Irish-Americans, often living in comparative 
comfort themselves, have been able through 
the Irish tenant and the Irish consumer thus 
to feed the greed of those twin despotisms, 
landlord absenteeism and commercial piracy. 

Landlordism is doomed. A wholesale land 
purchase bill is one of Mr. Gladstone's be- 
neficent measures for Ireland. Before many 
years these Httle tenant holdings shall have 
passed in fee simple to the actual tillers of 
the soil. 

There is every promise that when Ireland 
shall have regained her local government 
she will again seek to nurture her industries, 
give employment to her people, and thus 
relieve the unnatural demand upon agricult- 
ure, which is one cause of the present agra- 
rian troubles. Relieved from the political 



88 Industrial Despotism. 

oppression of Dublin Castle Rule and the 
eighty-seven coercion acts of this century, 
her police barracks can easily be changed 
into warehouses, her whiskey shops to bak- 
eries and her poorhouses to cattle sheds. 

Then shall Ireland's answer to the univer- 
sal question be more worthy the civilization 
of the on-coming twentieth century. 



CHAPTER VIL 

COERCION. 

THE earliest records of all peoples touch 
disputes concerning land^ First, (i) 
The individual wresting from his fellow a 
coveted hill or valley, then the tribe dispos- 
sessing by force their neighboring tribe ; 
finally, on a larger and more extended scale, 
opposing nations came into conflict 

As a rule, the direct and principal object 
of all invasions, is to get possession of the 
land of the conquered country ; this was true 
of the Jews, Vandals, Goths and Huns, and 
later of the Saxons, Danes and Normans. 

By the natural laws of assimilation the 
conquered and the conqueror speedily fuse, 
and adopt similar laws, language and dress ; 
Ireland was no exception to the operation of 
this law, and the original invaders readily 
assimilated to the Irish, and adopted their 
customs, manners and dress. This was too 

89 



QO Coercion. 

much for proud England, for did not all his- 
tory teach that the weaker and conquered 
people speedily fused and adopted the cus- 
toms and laws of their conquerors. The 
English people had fused with the Normans 
and had seen some of their cherished insti- 
tutions swallowed up by the feudal system 
of the invaders ; should the process be re- 
versed by the low Irish peasant ? No ; not 
if England could prevent it. 

Now begins the long and dreary series of 
Irish Coercion Acts. The first were aimed 
at the English colonists in Ireland, who were 
degenerating into " mere Irish " and would 
soon be absorbed by the " Irish enemy." 
This would be disastrous to English author- 
ity; hence the Kilkenny Statute, by which it 
was made higrh treason for the colonists to 
marry, bring up, foster, or stand sponsor to, 
any of the Irish, while any Englishman using 
an Irish name, wearing an Irish dress, speak- 
ing the Irish language, following the Irish 
custom of growing a moustache, or of riding 
without a saddle, had all of his possessions 
sold in atonement, or if a poor man, was con- 
demned to imprisonment for life. 



Coercion. 9 1 

The folly of such petty and unjust acts of 
coercion is only equalled by its wickedness. 
The logic of events soon demonstrated that 
these impositions of unusual restraint on 
the liberty of innocent customs and habits 
were a complete failure, and many of the 
colonists became " More Irish than the Irish 
themselves." 

The obvious injustice, and the failure of 
these first coercive measures taught Eng- 
land no lesson. Failing to prevent the grow- 
ing moustache, the bare-back riding, and the 
operation of God's universal law of love, 
marriage and offspring, she found herself in 
danger of losing by absorption what little 
power Ireland already possessed, and, with 
hardness of heart, determined to try other 
coercive measures. Poyning's law was di- 
rected against Irish Nationality and p^ro- 
vided that henceforth no Parliament should 
be held in Ireland ''until the Chief-Governor 
had certified to the King under the Great 
Seal, as well the causes and considerations, 
as the Acts they desired to pass, and till the 
same should be approved by the King and 
Council." Thus were the Irish compelled to 



92 Coercio7t. 

nullify their authorit}^ and their Parliament 
became a farce. 

These laws did not increase the love be- 
tween the two peoples, nor were they calcu- 
lated to make either natives or settlers 
law-abiding people. This exceptional inter- 
ference by England in purely Irish affairs 
was conspicuously unjust and contrary to 
her uniform conduct with her other color 
nies, and the result proved that while Eng- 
land by coercion could manacle the Irish 
Parliament, she could not thereby compel 
loyal obedience to laws practically enacted 
at Westminster. 

It is often claimed that religious dif- 
ferences are the chief causes of trouble 
between England and Ireland, but these 
instances of coercion occurred long before 
the Reformation, and when both islands pro- 
fessed the same creed, but so great was the 
mutual hatred in Ireland that Englishmen 
and Irishmen each built and worshiped in 
their own churches as exclusively as though 
some great difference of faith kept them 
apart. 

In the progress of time the Reformation 



Coercion. 93 

swept over England, and she became Pro- 
testant. Of course the Irish people must 
be Protestant too. This was a sacred duty, 
and must be accepted as of right. They 
were to change their faith at the word of 
command. No attempt was made to con- 
vert them; the Bible was not even translated 
into Irish. The English Church service was 
to be read in English or Latin, by these 
merciless enemies, to a people who under- 
stood neither. 

The result of this experiment failed. 
The Irish people were not to be converted 
in that way. Thus a new cause for coer- 
cive measures arose, and England was 
not slow to use it in vindicating the su- 
premacy of her religion. All former oppres- 
sion faded into insignificance before the 
stern " Penal Code " which was framed es- 
pecially to coerce Papists into Protestants. 
The English Parliament at Westminster, 
and the more English Parliament in Ireland 
concurred in stripping the Catholics (com- 
prising five sixths of the Irish people) of 
every vestige of civil, political and religious 
freedom. 



94 Cosrcion. 

The English historian Froude (who can- 
not be suspected of partiality to the Irish) 
has said: "The English government had 
added largely to their difficulty by attempt- 
ing to force the Reformation on Ireland 
while its political and social condition was 
still unsettled. The Irish were not to be 
blamed if they looked to the Pope, to Spain, 
to France, to any friend in earth or heaven 
to deliver them from a power that dis- 
charged no single duty that rulers owe to 
subjects." 

What was effected by these coercive laws.^ 
Priests were driven from their flocks, bishops 
and prelates put to death, church property 
was confiscated, and open mass gagged. 
The Reformation had come with crushing 
ferocity, and the " supremacy of England's 
ecclesiastical laws was vindicated." 

But what of the Irish spirit and the 
Catholic faith } Were these crushed 1 No 
indeed. The very brutalities of which the 
coercionists of that period were guilty, did 
but serve to intensify their faith in and love 
€or Romanism. 

The tangible Romish Church in Ireland 



Coercion. 95 

was for the time suppressed, but England 
forgot that the intangible, the ideal, the 
sentimental are just as real, and must be 
considered ; that faith and love are facts as 
actual as powder and shot The Irish clung 
to their faith, the English to their guns, and 
the fact that Romanism is stronger in Ire- 
land to-day than in any other nation on the 
face of the globe outside of the distinc- 
tively papal countries of Europe and South 
America, ought to teach the English govern- 
ment that the Armstrong gun will not crush 
out Irish nationalism, but will intensify it. 

Thus centuries of coercive measures failed 
to destroy Irish character, Irish customs or 
Irish faith. 

But proud England would not be baffled, 
and what she failed to do by force, she now 
seeks to do by fraud and stratagem. 

It is at least a change to turn our atten- 
tion from coercion to seduction. England 
now commenced to draw Ireland into the 
"union" by the influences of promises of 
titles, of political preferment, and a " judi- 
cious expenditure " of over ten millions of 
dollars among the members of the Irish 



96 Coercion. 

Parliament, all Protestants, and accomplished 
the tangible fact of " union." The articles 
were agreed to by the two Parliaments, and 
the rewards were duly bestowed on the vio- 
lent abductors of the Irish Parliament. 

The Irish people are informed that they 
are united with England, and dragged re- 
luctant and protesting to the bridal cham- 
ber. Was the sentiment of the Irish people 
changed .f^ No; except to make them detest 
England all the more. 

How absurd to a,pply the name of 
" union," which means concord, to a con- 
dition which is the result of seduction, 
abduction and coercion. What concord has 
existed between the two peoples during the 
eighty-seven years that have elapsed since 
the consummation of this unnatural crime .f^ 

In twenty-two of the first thirty years 
of the so-called " union '' the Habeas Cor- 
pus Act was suspended and eighteen Coer- 
cive Acts, or acts of a similar nature, passed. 
This fraudulent union has brought Ireland 
in eighty-seven years, eighty-seven coercion 
acts. The last and the most severe of all is 
aimed to crush the Irish National League 



Coercion. 97 

which the Irish people believe is " their sal- 
vation," and which alone stands between 
them and the most cruel oppression. And 
this is done with the deliberate and avowed 
object of destroying the political organiza- 
tion of the Irish people. 

On the twenty-fourth day of September, 
in the year of our Lord 1887, a decision is 
made according to the law and the testi- 
mony which presents to the world in ugly 
hieroglyphics, England's version of consti- 
tutional liberty in Ireland under the last 
Coercion Act. 

The arrest, under the Crimes Bill, of 
William O'Brien,^ for an alleged violation 
of the right of free speech, the denial to 
him of trial by a jury, his conviction and 
sentence to three months' imprisonment by 
two stipendiary magistrates of Dublin Castle, 
this is an heroic page in the history of Ire- 
land's march for constitutional liberty. 

The circumstances of the case were that, 
on the ninth and eleventh of August, 1887, 

* My apology for giving so full an account of the trial of William O'Brien 
lies in the hope that it will serve to illustrate the methods used by England in 
enforcing coercion laws. I was present and witnessed the trial. The accompa- 
nying details are taken almost verbatim from an account written at the time. 



98 Coercion. 

William O'Brien, a member of the British Par- 
liament, addressed his constituents at Mitch- 
elstown, County of Cork, Ireland, on general 
political issues. Among other things he 
advised tenants concerning the manner in 
which they should meet the processes of 
eviction then pending. He set forth the 
Plan of Campaign as the wisest course by 
which to maintain their holdings until the 
new act of Parliament, giving the tenants 
greater reduction in rent than many of them 
had dared to ask and which was soon to go 
into operation, would give redress. In the 
meanwhile they were advised to " defend 
their homes by all honest means, and to 
make evictions as slow and as expensive 
to the Government as possible." 

His advice was followed, and not another 
eviction was successfully carried out. The 
five hundred tenants on the Mitchelstown 
estate can now go into the Land Court and 
claim the provisions of the new law. 

The Crimes Bill, under which Mr. O'Brien 
was arrested, provides for the arrest and trial 
by summary proceeding before two resident 
magistrates and without jury " of any per- 



Coercion. 99 

son who shall incite any other person to 
resist a minister of the law in the execution 
of his duty." The trial was conducted in 
the court house, and seemed more like a 
military than a civil proceeding. The pris- 
oner entered town in an open carriage, pre- 
ceded by Scotch f usileers, surrounded by 
armed constabulary and mounted hussars. A 
procession of open carriages bringing brother 
members of Parliament — - Irish and Eno;lish 
— - and other friends and representatives of 
Irish nationalism followed the prisoner. At 
the court house ladies presented flowers and 
displayed the ribbon of green. 

The military and constabulary were va- 
riously disposed in the court room, about 
the entrance, in the square opposite and 
across the common highway on either side 
the main entrance to the town. Neio^hinof 
horses, nodding plumes, glittering steel, bril- 
liant red coats, armed men drawn up before 
the entrance to a court house, and all for 
what? Why is all this display, this show 
of war? Has Russia marched on Bulgaria, 
have Bismarck and Von Moltke broken the 
Triple Alliance, has Napoleon's ghost arisen 



loo Coercion. 

and has Wellington called to arms? O no! 
This is only William O'Brien — the man 
who could not be hired to run away — and 
the unarmed peasants who have come to 
do him honor. The court consisted of two 
resident magistrates appointed by Dublin 
Castle. They represented in physique and 
general bearing typical English gentlemen. 

William O'Brien, the prisoner at the bar, 
was the centre of interest — a tall, spare 
man, with large features, a strongly marked 
intellectual development, piercing eyes even 
through the glasses which he always wears, 
quick, almost nervous in movement and in- 
tense in nature and convictions. He looked 
a little worn from confinement and his jour- 
ney hither; he neither smiled nor frowned 
at the testimony of witness, the sparring of 
counsel or the rulings of the court. Con- 
fronted with representatives of the Crown, 
really partisans of a Tory Government which 
he had defied, surrounded by military and 
armed constabulary, from whom his accus- 
ers are taken, as one after another testified 
against him he was as calm and self-poised 
as if in his editorial chair at Dublin. The 



Coercion. loi 

room was densely packed and all were friends 
save the officers of the Crown and their serv- 
ants. His counsel, Mr. T. Harrington M. P., 
and Mr. Mandeville of Mitchelstown, were 
personal friends and brother-patriots as well. 
They conducted a vigorous and powerful 
defence. 

Next in interest, but not second in the 
affections of the people, is John Dillon, who 
sits close by intently watching the proceed- 
ings. Now and then slowly rising with sim- 
ple dignity, his calm eyes quietly assure the 
eager throng that, however this case may 
go, the battle brings final victory to Ireland. 
There emanates from this strong, quiet man, 
who seldom smiles, an irresistible moral 
power; it compels the respectful considera- 
tion of his enemies, it inspires confidence 
and cements devotion among his followers. 
This is true in a limited sense of a dozen or 
more lesser leaders whom the people trust 
and obey. 

These leaders have been more effective as 
a self-constituted police among these surging 
multitudes than the Castle constabulary or 
Her Majesty's Hussars. The organizer and 



I02 Coercion. 

commander of this voluntary local police, is 
John Mandeville, brother to Mr. O'Brien's 
counsellor, himself under arrest for tRe same 
so-called incendiarism. From his prison cell 
he districted the town and stationed his 
men ; in citizens' clothes and without arms, 
they have kept the peace, notwithstanding 
the people were annoyed with the show and 
interference of military authority, and aggra- 
vated at the spectacle of their heroic de- 
fender in Parliament and at home, on trial 
for the strong, helpful words he had uttered 
to and for them. What a spectacle ! A 
member of Parliament on trial as a disturber 
of the peace, an inciter to incendiarism, his 
co-defendant in jail awaiting trial for a 
similar offence ; these two alleged crim- 
inals holding in check thousands of men 
impassioned by poverty and sense of out- 
rage, but who for this repressive moral power 
mieht have thrown themselves across this 
last dead line of England's nineteenth cent- 
ury coercion policy ! 

The heroic and the pathetic are strangely 
blended in this passing history. A few brave 
men, with love of God, of country and of 



Coercion. 103 



human rights, make their protest against the 
hoary legal intrenchments of landed aris- 
tocracies. With self-abnegation they labor 
without ceasing, they endure all things, they 
risk all things. This is heroism. The un- 
questioning loyalty of poor, ignorant men, 
the tender, almost worshipful devotion of 
women and little children, the benediction 
of the aged, these are pathetic. Very touch- 
ing are some manifestations of these people. 
Among the multitudes who -crowded about 
the door as O'Brien entered the court was a 
decrepit old woman, who gazed reverently as 
the adored hero passed. With hands clasped 
in attitude of prayer she said : " Indeed Fm 
praying His holy name, and the blessed Mary 
and Joseph and all the rest of thim, that 
there'll no harm come to any one to-day. 
Sure and might not we be patient ; did not 
Himself suffer more than any of us, and 
His blessed mother looking at Him all the 
time ? " 

While the crowd cheered and threw their 
caps in air at sight of their heroes, along its 
fringe were many tearful women who feebly 
swayed with weight of anguished years, 



I04 Coercion. 

which left in them no power to utter sound. 
As dies the last tone of a muffled bell, when 
the funeral train has passed, so they looked 
silent on. When Ireland's coming day shall 
have arisen from this red morn these mourn- 
ers will be resting underneath the verdant 
sod, but their children and their children's 
children shall be free. 

Mr. T. Harrington, the leading counsel 
for Mr. O'Brien, is a typical Irishman, im- 
petuous to ferocity, humorous to hilarity, at 
times incisive and cold as steel, and again 
hot as burning lava. He follows the witness 
on cross-examination with the seeming reck- 
lessness of a trained acrobat or the merciless 
grip of a professional pugilist. The case for 
the Crown rested on the testimony of three 
policemen, who took the stand, armed and 
in full uniform. It is the custom for the 
Government on its own behalf to detail a 
reporter for popular Irish gatherings, that an 
official account of the meetings and the very 
words of the speakers may be known to 
the Castle. Much annoyance and doubtless 
some intimidation has been occasioned by 
this custom. During the progress of the 



Coercion. 105 

case on behalf of the Crown, and after the 
introduction of several witnesses, whose tes- 
timony failed to sustain the charge, the 
Crown rested without calling Constable 
O'Sullivan, who was the ofiScial reporter of 
the meeting at which O'Brien spoke. Then 
occurred a dramatic scene, the like of which 
is seldom witnessed in a court room. Mr. 
Harrington sprang to his feet and exclaimed, 
" Is it possible, Your Worships, that the Crown 
will close this case without calling Head 
Constable O'SuUivan, who was that day in 
charge of the peace of the town, and who 
certainly should be able to give material tes- 
timony ? " To this the Crown counsel coolly 
replied : " The case for the Crown has 
closed,'' repeating the answer several times 
in response to Mr. Harrington's exclama- 
tions of surprise. '' Very well, then," said 
Harrington, '' I ask Your Worship for a 
summons for Head Constable O'Sullivan." 
After some words as to the cowardice of the 
Crown in not producing its own officer as a 
witness, and the taunting retort that if this 
witness were called by the defence they must 
be bound by his testimony, Mr. Harrington 



io6 Coercion. 

said : " Very well, then, I take him as my 
witness, hostile though he certainly will be." 
After the confusion attending this seeming 
recklessness had subsided, O'Sullivan ap- 
peared and was sworn. 

Following preliminary questions as to his 
being in charge of the force on that day, 
his presence at the meeting, his taking notes 
of Mr. O'Brien's speech. Counsel Harring- 
ton asked him to produce the notes. He 
answered he would not unless directed by 
his superior officer. The Court was evidently 
inclined to shield the witness, and seemed 
confused as to a conflict of authority between 
himself and the Royal Constabulary, to which 
the witness was subordinate. After some 
consultation the officer in command, with 
sword dangling from his belt, stepped to the 
witness, and, after conference, permitted him 
to produce the notes. They were fuller and 
more carefully prepared than those of pre- 
vious witnesses ; they were far less objection- 
able in tenor and actual signification ; indeed, 
a case against Mr. O'Brien could not have 
been sustained by that report of his speech. 
It was then quite evident why the Crown had 



Coercion, 107 

not produced this witness. Faces before 
listless became intense, and interest deepened 
to indignation when, on examination by coun- 
sel, it was discovered that the resistance ad- 
vocated by Mr. O'Brien was qualified by the 
noble adjective " honest." This word was 
omitted from the notes of former witnesses 
of the Crown, and when it was further dis- 
covered that upon the margin of the paper 
on which the notes were written was penciled 
in another hand, '' not to be used," and that this 
official report had been carried by the witness 
to Dublin Castle ; that a conference with the 
Crown counsel and the Divisional Inspector 
of Royal Constabulary — Capt. Plunkett by 
name — had there been held ; that one of the 
here presiding judges on that very day, and 
from that very place, had issued the summons 
for the arrest of Mr. O'Brien ; when one after 
another these circumstances of a manifest 
conspiracy by civil and military officers of 
the Crown to jeopardize the liberty of a citi- 
zen by suppressing exculpatory testimony in 
its possession; when with cumulative force 
this all appeared, it is not strange that a 
powerful impression was evident in that 



io8 Coercion, 

crowded court room. Counsel for the Crown 
was dumb, the witness crimsoned, the impli- 
cated judge attempted a personal defence. 
Counsel Harrington, rising to his utmost 
height, seized the unpretending paper, and, 
with terrible force, denounced the whole pro- 
ceedings as a mockery of justice and a dis- 
grace to the Empire. Gathering up his papers 
and brief, he said: " I will not further disgrace 
myself by practicing before this court." Mean- 
while, the most unmoved of all the throng 
were the prisoner at the bar and his friend, 
John Dillon. In the midst of the excite- 
ment the Court adjourned. The Court, at 
the opening of the next day's sessions, com- 
mented on the unfortunate occurrence of the 
preceding day, and severely reprimanded Mr. 
Harrington — he, however, was absent — and 
stated that the dignity of the Court must be 
sustained. To this Mr. O'Brien (now acting 
without counsel) replied. He fully justified 
Mr. Harrington's general conduct of the case 
and his course in the circumstances under 
criticism ; he expressed high appreciation of 
the distinguished ability and legal acumen 
displayed in wresting from a prejudiced court 



Coercion. 109 

and an intriguing counsel evidence of a 
Dublin Castle plot to suppress official testi- 
mony, and thus endanger his liberty and per- 
haps his life. While he thus justified his 
devoted friend, he found himself deprived of 
his valuable service, and must conduct his 
further defence alone. In impassioned ma- 
jesty, and self-conscious integrity, his illu- 
mined face bore no trace of despair. 

'* Ulysses stood alone, but stood collected 
in himself and whole.'' Mr. O'Brien closed 
in his own defence. He declared the con- 
struction of the Court unconstitutional, the 
judges biased by subordination to political 
and military authority, the Crown counsel 
manifestly guilty of prejudicing his cause by 
a suppression of official testimony, and he 
denounced the ostentatious display of con- 
stabulary and military force as an insult to 
the Irish people, whose representative he was. 
He claimed that the Crown had utterly failed 
to establish a case against him, but disclaimed 
any desire to deny or apologize for or weaken 
any advice he had given or any words he 
had spoken. He rejoiced that his advice had 
been so generally followed, and that so many 



no Coercion. 

poor tenants, by it, had been saved from utter 
ruin. He reviewed the deplorable condition 
of the people, their sense of outrage at the 
course pursued by the land agents, and boldly 
declared that, far from beino; a disturber of 
the peace and an inciter to lawlessness, he 
was a conservator of the peace and a friend 
of good government. He appealed from this 
court to the Irish people, to the English 
Democracy, and to the civilized world. While 
listening to his wonderful plea, one forgot that 
he was the prisoner at the bar, and thought 
of him as a chief amid his clan, a hero of 
heroes, a seer among statesmen, a Christian 
patriot ready to live and labor or suffer and 
die for his country. Of what consequence 
to him then was the three months' sentence 
that the Mitchelstown Court imposed upon 
him? 'Tis but a speck of time; a comma 
in the record of his life's work. In the long 
perspective of history he shall stand among 
heroes. In the heap of manacles, and whips, 
and chains, and tortuous engines of earth s 
tyrannies shall be seen the bands he broke, 
the fetters he unloosed. Multitudes of Ire- 
land's poor shall call him blessed. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE IRISH LAND QUESTION. 

IN tracing England's dealings with Ire- 
land in the matters of government, 
religion and commerce, we have pointed 
out how these were affected by the land 
question. It is the one question which has 
been in dispute during the whole period 
since the conquest, and which still lies at 
the root of Ireland's difficulties. 

Seven hundred years of strife and tumult, 
of injustice and violence, have passed away, 
and still the conflict goes on. 

That we may the better comprehend the 
agrarian wrongs which the people now suf- 
fer, and the nature and scope of the recent 
land acts passed, it is well to examine the 
causes of this perpetual conflict. 

As already shown, conquest, confiscation 
and coercion were the means used by the 
English to acquire possession of lands in 
Ireland. 



112 The Irish Land Question. 

If the proportion of the English colonists 
in Ireland had approached In number that 
of the native Irish population, and If they 
had maintained actual possession of these 
stolen lands, a complete organization of 
society on the English system of Land 
Tenure might have been the result, and the 
strife might have ended. But such was not 
the case ; the best land was taken by force 
and parcelled out to colonists, or allotted 
to noblemen who lived In England, the 
native Irish being driven on to the poorer 
lands. The real estate of the English colo- 
nist was held under the Feudal System. 

By the thirteenth century the custom of 
Primogeniture had become absolute In Eng- 
land. By this law the eldest son had the ex- 
clusive light to succeed to his father's estates. 
The Irish had quite another system of Land 
Tenure ; the land was divided between dif- 
ferent clans and families on an equitable 
basis, and when a member of a sept or clan 
died, the chief divided the lands afresh 
among the remaining members, the heirs 
of the deceased receiving, share and share, 
alike. This was the Common Law of the 



The Irish Land Question, 1 1 3 

country ; the immemorial usage handed 
down through long generations. 

It is evident that this conflict in tenure 
might open the door to countless disputes; 
and this was the fact. 

This point is one which it is necessary 
to dwell upon, because it will help to ex- 
plain many of the anomalies of the Land 
question. 

During the two centuries that followed 
the invasion of Ireland by Henry 11 the 
Tribal System of Tenure prevailed over 
the greater part of the Island. Many of the 
English barons had left their estates and 
returned to England ; indeed, many had 
never taken actual and visible possession 
of their Irish lands ; these estates were re- 
possessed by the Irish people, and again 
came under tribal law^s and customs, while 
the members of septs and clans again be- 
came co-proprietors, and retained possession 
for many generations. 

Thus we see engrafted on the same land 
and at the same time the two systems of 
tenures ; the paper title in the absent Eng- 
lishman from the Crown, representing the 



114 T^^ Irish Land Question. 

Feudal System, and the tribal title, with 
actual possession, granted by the chief rep- 
resenting the Tribal System. 

In the progress of time these lands be- 
came more valuable and the EnQ;lish owners 
or their heirs at law began to look them up 
and claim their rights ; this brought on a 
conflict between the invaded and the in- 
vaders ; a conflict of two systems. Thus 
was inaugurated a struggle between two 
peoples which has never ceased, and never 
will, until it is possible for the Irishman to 
become the owner of the soil of his country 
on an equitable basis. 

We have briefly summarized the land 
tenures of Ireland, from Henry ii to Charles 
II — nearly five centuries ; and this was the 
tim_e it took to destroy the Tribal System, 
though as a matter of fact it was not 
entirely replaced by the English System ; 
for while the English landlord reaped the 
benefits of the Feudal System of tenure, he 
used the old Sept System when it could be 
applied to the prejudice of the tenant. The 
landlord as chief of the sept, had forcibly 
taken all its land; and the Irish tenants, the 



The Irish Land Question, 115 

members of the sept, paid rent to this chief, 
and made all improvements at their own 
expense. 

This dual system of land tenure is a fruit- 
ful cause of Ireland's griefs, and will pre- 
pare the mind of the reader to appreciate 
the difficulties which beset the English Par- 
liament in attempting now after centuries of 
these oppressive systems, to adjust the re- 
lations of landlord and tenant. 

In 1870 the First Land Act became law 
and the English people doubtless believed 
that at last Ireland's wrong had been righted. 

The debates in Parliament at that time 
show that the pleas of the more advanced 
Irish party were not listened to ; they per- 
sistently claimed that the act did not go to 
the root of the disease, and that in some 
respects it would aggravate the evil. 

The act sought to create fixity of tenure 
for the tenant, so long as he should pay his 
rent, and to insure him compensation for the 
improvements which he had made. It was 
an imperfect measure, and the views of the 
Irish members were soon shown to be correct. 
The landlords had retained " their power to 



1 1 6 The Irish Land Question, 

arbitrarily increase their rents, irrespective 
of the value of the holdings of their estates." 
The act only provided for compensation for 
improvements in case of arbitrary eviction; 
when a tenant was evicted for non-payment 
of rent he lost his right. If for any cause 
a landlord desired to evict a tenant, and retain 
the improvements without compensation, it 
was an easy matter to make the rent suffi- 
ciently high to accomplish the object. In 
some instances rents were raised as high as 
five hundred per cent. 

In the three years before this Land Act 
was passed there were served four thousand 
two hundred and fifty-three notices to quit ; 
in the three years after, five thousand six 
hundred and forty-one, and in seven years 
after they had doubled. This first act failed 
" to diffuse the blessings of peace, order and 
industry, over a smiling land" as was prophe- 
sied. Why did it fail } Because English- 
men would not take the advice of the Irish 
leaders, but persisted in looking at questions 
purely Irish through English spectacles. 

Between 1871 and 1880 no less than 
twenty-eight measures to amend or extend 



The Irish Land Question. 1 1 7 

the provisions of this Land Act of 1870 were 
introduced into Parliament, but not one of 
them was carried. 

The Irish people, despairing of obtaining 
justice from agitation in the English Parlia- 
ment, were again forced into the adoption 
of means which were contrary to law and 
order, and terrible outrages were committed, 
which were deplored by none more than by 
the Irish leaders themselves. These out- 
rages caused new coercive acts to be passed, 
and poor Ireland was again in an alarmingly 
disturbed state. The landlords organized, 
and fearing the growing sentiment in Eng- 
land in favor of a new land bill, that would 
compel compensation in all instances of 
eviction, they made the most of their time 
and opportunity, and writs of evictions came 
thick and fast upon the poor tenants. 

What marvel then that, during this period 
of ten years, Irishmen should organize for 
self-protection ? The Home Rule League 
and the Land League were organized for the 
purpose of uniting all creeds and opinions 
in favor of Home Rule and Land Reform 
for Ireland. These carried on a marvelous 



it8 The Irish Land Question. 

and world-wide agitation, and by united 
efforts in 1880 succeeded in increasing the 
number of their representatives in the Eng- 
lish Parliament to sixty members. 

The thought of the English people was 
again turned to Ireland. Beaconsfield an- 
nounced his intention of appealing to the 
people, and officially denounced the Home 
Rule party. The Liberal Party, which was 
known to be in favor of remedial legislation 
for Ireland came into power at the general 
election of 1880, with Gladstone as their 
leader. The first act of the new Govern- 
ment was to appoint a Royal Commission to 
inquire into the working of the Land Act 
of 1870. It is interesting to read the report 
of that commission, and its recommenda- 
tions, and to note how fully this report sus- 
tained the prophecy of the Irish leaders. It 
was to the effect that while the Land Bill 
had failed to produce any reform in, the sys- 
tem of land tenure in Ireland, it had not 
checked unreasonable increase in rents, nor 
had it lessened evictions. _ 

In 1 88 1 Mr. Gladstone made an earnest 
and bold attempt to deal with the land ques- 



The Irish La7id Question. 119 

tion. A measure introduced by him was 
intended to secure fair rents, fair sale, and 
fixity of tenure. A principal feature was the 
creation of a Land Court, by which all dis- 
putes between landlord and tenant might be 
decided. A tenant going before this court 
could have his holding appraised, and the 
judicial rent thus fixed controlled for fifteen 
vears; durino; this time no rise in rent was 
to be possible, and no eviction, save for non- 
payment of rent, could take place. In case 
the tenant wished to sell the good-will of his 
holding, he could do so. This bill after 
being sent back by the House of Lords three 
times was finally agreed to, and passed on 
the twenty-second day of August, 1881. 

What a strange fatuity ! The chosen rep- 
resentatives of L'eland who took part in the 
debates on this bill have suffered imprison- 
ment for agitating the very views which it 
formulated. 

It will be noticed that this bill, creating a 
new land tenure, gave to the Irish tenant 
great privileges, and created what is prac- 
tically known as a joint-ownership in the soil. 
It was an infrino^ement of the rights of 



I20 The Irish Land Question. 

property, and presents one of the anomalies 
of this Irish Land Question. It deprived 
the landlord of fixing the value of his own 
property, and practically declared that part 
of the value of the land is the just posses- 
sion of the tenant. 

Again England's statesmen congratulated 
the country that the perplexing land ques- 
tion in Ireland was forever settled. But the 
events which had produced so great a change 
in public opinion in England, as to render 
it possible that such a bill could become law, 
had produced a corresponding advance in 
Irish demands, and the land bill which ten 
years before would have satisfied them, now 
received only their cold approval, and was 
accepted as merely a half-measure. And 
such it proved to be. Thousands rushed to 
the court to have a fair rent fixed ; within 
the first two years over seventy-five thousand 
were fixed by the land court, sixty-six thou- 
sand by agreement between the landlord and 
the tenant, and over ten thousand by the 
county court; an average of all of these 
shows that the rents were reduced twenty 
per cent. 



The Irish La7id Question. 121 

Surely no stronger case for the justice of 
the tenant's claim could be made out, for 
accordins: to the scale of fair rent as fixed 
by the court he had for years been paying 
twenty per cent too much to the landlord. 

Mr. Gladstone with the best intentions 
towards the Irish people, tried to settle 
the Land Question by this bill. He made 
a mighty effort to uproot this upas-tree of 
centuries' growth. He would have measur- 
ably succeeded but for the unusual .de- 
pression of more than twenty per cent in 
agricultural products, since these fair rents 
were fixed, and but for the further fact that 
many of the tenants by reason of being un- 
able to pay back rents, could not take the 
benefits of the act, while others had no 
money to expend in ordinary court expenses. 

It will thus be seen that the landlords were 
still masters of the situation, and no one saw 
this sooner than did Mr. Gladstone himself. 
Again he addressed himself to the question 
of the remedy. To his mind the time had 
come to do full and complete justice to Ire- 
land, according to the Irish idea, and to this 
end he introduced in 1885 the Home Rule 



122 The Irish La7id Question. 

and Land Purchase bills. These gave to 
Ireland an independent parliament with full 
power of dealing with all local matters includ- 
ing land ; they reserved imperial guarantees 
for imperial matters, — such as the army, 
navy and finance, — and used the imperial 
credit as a means of transformino; the tenure 
of land and of buying out landlords who 
were unwilling to remain under the - new 
order of things. 

This scheme, generous, wise and states- 
manlike, is worthy of the great man who con- 
ceived it. With unmovable allegiance to 
justice, and with sublime faith in the future, 
he chose, when it was rejected, to retire 
from the office of Prime Minister of the 
British Empire, and to abide the verdict of 
the people. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE UNION. 



THE agitation for Home Rule for Ire- 
land compels a recurrence to what 
some term ancient history, but as the Bishop 
of Westchester has well said, " The roots of 
the present lie deep in the past." 

If the Irish people had voluntarily entered 
into the union with Great Britain, and if 
the conditions of the union had been ful- 
filled by both parties to the act — an act 
involving such vast interests, and affecting 
so many vested rights — it should have 
been reg^arded as sacred and bindino- until 
dissolved by mutual consent; but if, on 
the other hand, the Irish Parliament with the 
show of local government was wrested from 
the Irish people by fraud and violence and 
they were betrayed into the union, it matters 
a great deal, and mere lapse of time cannot 
bar the right to full restitution. 

123 



124 The Union. 

Previous to 1782 legislation in the Irish 
Parliament was controlled by the English 
Privy Council, through the provisions of the 
celebrated statute known as the Poyning's 
Law. In 1782 this statute was modified and 
the Irish Parliament was in theory independ- 
ent, though practically it was largely con- 
trolled by English influence, as Catholics 
were still ineligible. 

From 1782 to 1800 during the period of 
Parliamentary independence there was great 
increase in prosperity admitted by the fore- 
most advocates " of the union,'' as shown in 
a previous chapter. 

This brings us down to the time of the 
unholy Union and leads us to inquire into 
the methods used to accomplish it. 

The debates on the Act of Union in the 
British Parliament show conclusively that 
Birmino;ham and Manchester feared the 
growing industries of Ireland as being dis- 
advantageous to them ; indeed the con- 
trivers of the union before 1799 avowed to 
each other " that the great object of their 
work was a stoppage of the growing pros- 
perity of Ireland " ; they probably did not 



The Union. 125 

dream of so complete an attainment of that 
end as has been achieved. 

While touching upon the real motive of 
the English Government, we ought not to 
omit the evident intention, as it has finally 
resulted, of making the Irish people share 
in the English national debt ; not on a pro 
rata basis by putting in the comparatively 
small Irish national debt (though this was at 
first proposed), but by making the otherwise 
oppressed and impoverished nation bear as 
much of the debt of both countries as could 
possibly be wrung from it. 

In 1880 the Irish national debt was only 
twenty-one millions, whereas the English 
national debt was four hundred and forty- 
six millions, and the union was advocated 
on the ground that by this means Ireland 
would be subject to British taxes. 

Mr. Posthlewait in writing about the de- 
sirability of the union said, '' By the union 
Ireland would soon be enabled to pay a mil- 
lion a year toward the taxes of Great Britain 
beside the full support of their own establish- 
ment." Then comes this remarkable pas- 
sage (which displays the desire of the shark 



126 The Union. 

to unite with its prey) : " As England does 
already possess no inconsiderable share of 
the lands of Ireland, so the union would 
prove an effectual method to vest the rest 
in her; for as the riches of Ireland would 
chiefly return to England, she containing the 
seat of the empire, the few Irish landlords 
left would be little better than tenants to her 
for allowing them the privilege of making 
the best of their estates." 

The fear of a French invasion was also a 
reason for the establishment of the union. 
"Had Napoleon taken his fleet to Ireland 
instead of to Egypt, the power of England 
might have been annihilated, and in after 
years Napoleon saw how fatal had been his 
error ; but Pitt and the other English states- 
men saw the danger at the time, and know- 
ing the widespread disaffection in Ireland, 
they perceived as Napoleon did not, that, 
invaded by a French fleet the Ireland of 1798 
might have become a French province to 
the inevitable ruin of the British empire." 

This deep-seated fear (felt though not 
acknowledged) having taken possession of 
England's rulers it became an incentive for 



The Union. 127 

the most powerful efforts that could be put 
forth for national preservation, and a survey 
of the field developed all that diplomacy 
could devise, all that stratagem combined 
with miUtary power, could accomplish, aided 
by bribery and intimidation. 

With the general view of making the Act 
of Union more likely to pass, even though it 
might not be popular, the Act of Catholic 
Emancipation was discussed and virtually 
promised. This act had already become 
popular with the Irish people — Protestants 
as well as Catholics. Lord Fitzwilliam was 
appointed as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 
He was known to be favorable to such an 
act, and numerous petitions for its enact- 
ment were sent to him on his arrival in the 
country. 

In February, 1795, Grattan brought in a 
bill w^hich Sir William Pitt, then Prime 
Minister, approved ; but the king announc* 
ing his opposition, Pitt was obliged to reverse 
his policy or resign his office ; he preferred 
the former course ; the Lord Lieutenant 
was recalled, his appointments reversed, and 
Grattan's bill was supported by a minority 



128 The Union. 

of only forty-eight. The cup of concession, 
held thus temptingly to the lips of Ireland, 
was dashed away by royal caprice ; the 
people were exasperated, and the rebellion of 
1 798 soon made its dreadful record. Seventy 
thousand persons perished in this intermit- 
tent civil war if that may be called a civil war 
which is represented on one side by a power- 
ful and rapacious army and on the other by 
a people enfeebled by poverty, weighed down 
by superstition, and only sustained by a sense 
of inalienable right, a love of home and fire- 
side, the renown of their ancestry treasured 
in legendary ballad and historical record, 
and in such race inter-lineaments as assured 
them of their rightful heritage. 

In order to veil a portion of the heinous- 
ness of this act, it was thought necessary to 
make it appear to be a measure popular 
with the people. Lord Cornwallis there- 
fore travelled through a portion of the 
country obtaining signatures to a petition 
for the union ; these he secured by persua- 
sion, intimidation, dissimulation, and under 
or while martial law was in operation. He 
succeeded in obtaining about three thou- 



The Union, 129 

sand names, while the patriot party obtained 
about seven hundred and seven thousand 
signatures against the act " Twenty-seven 
counties," says Mr. Sheridan, " declared 
against the union, and with these there 
would have been included, if martial law 
had not been proclaimed and prevented 
the intended meetings, the counties of An- 
trim and SHq-o. If the measure was thus to 
be carried I have no hesitation in saying 
that it was an act of tyranny and oppression, 
and must become the fatal source of new 
discontents and future rebellions.'' 

An ugly feature of this conspiracy of 
diplomacy and power was the subornation 
of the Independent Parliament of Ireland, 
known as Grattan's Parliament. At a time 
when the country had become comparatively 
prosperous through equitable laws adminis- 
tered by it in the interest of that country, 
this Parliament was virtually annulled by 
the suborning of a large majority of its 
members by British bribes and a terrorizing 
diplomacy. 

The purchase of representative boroughs 
and the unseating of members not favorable 



130 The Union. 

to the union are well-authenticated facts 
which " he who runs may read." This latter 
move was effected by a technical perversion 
of the " Place Bill '' and by substituting mem- 
bers to vote for the union, though against 
their every sense of right, and the proffer of 
English peerages. 

Thus what all other means could not do 
was effected by bribery and political corrup- 
tion. " Twenty-two Irish peerages," it is 
stated, *'were created, five peers received 
English peerages, and twenty peers received 
higher titles." 

When defending himself in the state 
trials before a jury composed exclusively of 
Unionists, Mr. O'Connell affirmed without 
fear of contradiction : " You know that there 
were one million two hundred and seventy- 
five thousand pounds actually spent in the 
purchase of rotten boroughs. You know 
that there were three million pounds besides 
expended in actual payment of the persons 
who voted for the union." 

Mr. Lecky says : " The ministers, by 
money and dignities, had bought almost 
all the great nomination borough owners, 



The Union. 131 

as well as a large proportion of the members, 
and this made their success certain." 

Each seat was valued at seven thousand 
five hundred pounds, and the whole sum 
awarded amounted to one million two hun- 
dred and sixty thousand pounds. 

The proposition w^as at first defeated in 
the Irish Parliament by a vote of one hun- 
dred and nine to one hundred and four. 
Public enthusiasm ran high and the illumi- 
nation of Dublin attested the feeling of the 
people. 

Two days after the defeat of the measure 
in the Irish House of Commions Lord Corn- 
wallis wrote a secret and confidential letter 
to the Duke of Cortland, in which he says : 

'' The late experiment has shown the im- 
possibility of carrying the measure, which is 
contrary to the private interests of those 
who are to decide it, and which is not sup- 
ported by the country at large." 

The measure was carried, however, on 
June 7, 1800, and received the royal assent 
on August 2nd of the same year; "the pro- 
longed struggle between the Patriot party 
and the British cabinet " was for the time 



132 The Union. 

concluded and " an independent kingdom 
began to be governed by alien officials in 
whose selection she had no voice ; her Na- 
tional Parliament filled with nominees of 
these officials, and of the House of Lords." 

The Act of Union became operative in 
1801, and was in that year sustained by a 
standing army of one hundred and twenty- 
nine thousand two hundred and fifty-eight 
men; an increase from less than eight thou- 
sand, used to crush the rebellion of 1798, 
which was intended to express the popular 
will against the union. 

This was an early fruit of the " peace 
and good will " promised to result from the 
union. 

It is a well-acknowledged principle in the 
courts of the civilized world, that a contract 
which has been brought about by misrepre- 
sentation or fraud is not only voidable, but 
void ab initio, and that it is the duty of 
courts of equity to not only declare such 
contracts void, but, if possible, to place the 
parties in the same position as they were 
before the contract was entered into. When 
England returns to Ireland her " Home 



The Union. 133 

Rule," and makes such disposition of the 
Land Question as is just and equitable, she 
will then have but complied with the origi- 
nal rules of justice that are compelled be- 
tween man and man. 

If, however, the means used to carry the 
union had been lawful and right, and if 
the action of the Irish Parliament had been 
unbiased by fraud or intimidation, the ques- 
tion may still be asked. Where did that Par- 
liament get its authority to annul the Irish 
constitution and to deliver the government 
to England? 

The people of Ireland, as far as they had 
a voice, sent their delegates to Dublin to 
make laws under the constitution of Ireland 
and for that commonwealth, but instead of 
doing what they were elected to do, they 
arrogated to themselves the power to trans- 
fer their authority to the Parliament at 
Westminster. Lord Chancellor Plunkett de- 
nied the competency of the Irish Parliament 
to do this act in the most express terms. " I 
warn you," he said, ^' do not lay your hands 
on the constitution ; I tell you that if, circum- 
stanced as you are, you pass this act, it will 



134 The Ujzion, 

be a mere nullity, and no man in Ireland 
will be bound to obey it ; you Have not been 
elected for that purpose ; you were elected 
to make laws, and appointed to exercise 
the functions of legislators, not to transfer 
them ; you are appointed to act under the 
constitution, not to destroy it." 

This was sound doctrine, founded on the 
immutable laws of right and reason, but it 
did not prevail, and Ireland's constitution and 
government were taken by force. 

Froude says: "If there be one lesson 
which history clearly teaches, it is this : that 
free nations cannot govern subject provinces. 
If they are unable or unwilling to admit 
their dependencies to share their own con- 
stitution, the constitution itself will fall in 
pieces from mere incompetence for its duties." 

May it not be that the spirit of Anglican 
Liberty long outraged by England in her 
treatment of Ireland, is now an avenging 
angel fighting Ireland's cause ; and that the 
forces thus working out her salvation, are 
the silent forces protecting the Englishman 
in his constitutional rights } 



CHAPTER X. 



HOME RULE. 



GREAT epochs in the progress of con- 
stitutional Hberty have been marked 
by popular agitation, by sanguinary strife, 
legislative controversy and judicial decisions. 
The Irish cause now attractino^ the attention 
of the world is marked by these distinguish- 
ing features. It is kin to Israel's revolt 
from Egyptian task-makers ; its leaders are 
brother patriots of those of Sparta, Greece, 
Poland, Hungary, Switzerland. Its princi- 
ples are justified by the Magna Charta and 
the Bill of Rights ; by the American Declar- 
ation of Independence and the Emancipation 
Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. 

Why should it be thought a thing incred- 
ible that a people with clearly marked race 
and creed distinctions, with an individual 
history and a national spirit, and dwelling in 
a country separated from all others by tem- 

^3S 



136 Home Rule. 

pestiious seas, should desire self-government ? 
When it is remembered that Ireland is such 
a country and that for hundreds of years she 
was unconquered, while her neighbor Eng- 
land yielded to successive invasions, is it 
surprising that she now protests against a 
government of injustice and coercion ? Is it 
strange that after seeing for centuries such 
power of oppression wielded by a foreign 
government the Irish people should believe 
in a home government ? 

Their claim for Home Rule for Ireland is 
justified: — - 

Because the right of self-government in- 
heres in individuals and in states. 

Because it is a crime against the spirit of 
liberty to govern a state by mere force of 
numbers and military power, when that state 
has demanded self-government. 

Because the crime is increased when this 
coercive government is imposed upon a 
once free people, with race peculiarities and 
national aspirations. 

Because insult is added to injury when 
such usurpation and coercion are continued 
under the mockery of constitutional forms. 



Home R2ile, 137 

Various notions obtain among the Irish 
themselves, as to wherein Home Rule would 
affect their present condition. The hillside 
tenant on the sterile holding where his 
fathers lived and died, remembers the 
legends of his childhood, of the wild life of 
his clan, unfettered by Parliamentary decree 
or landlord's claim ; his dream of Home 
Rule may be of a life as untrammeled by 
governmental interference. Others under 
the sting of oppressive landlordism, and 
knowing England as the power which sent 
the armed constable and mounted hussar 
to enforce the landlord's cruel eviction pro- 
cess, hate England, and believe that a 
complete separation from her would bring 
Ireland's national millennium. 

But by far the larger and more influential 
part of the people are intelligent students of 
political systems ; they know the forms of 
Home Rule under which Canada, Australia 
and other Eno;lish colonies maintain har- 
monious relations with the mother country. 
They have close connections with the Irish 
in America and an intimate knowledge of 
our republican institutions ; their leaders in 



138 Home Rule. 

the House of Commons are the peers of 
English and American statesmen ; they de- 
sire local government and an Irish Parlia- 
ment for purely local and Irish affai:^, with 
relations to the Imperial Parliament similar 
in outline to such as exist between our 
States and the Government at Washington. 
They know that the details of these rela- 
tion will be settled by the power which con- 
fers on them local government. They also 
know that some adjustment of the land 
question must precede or accompany their 
desired Home Rule. Mr. Gladstone's meas- 
ure recognized this necessity, and presented 
a plan for land purchase. 

Knowing the dual nature of the remedy 
which must be administered to Ireland's 
diseased body, we remember that during the 
present century the Imperial Parliament has 
been again and again informed by its own 
committees and commissioners, that the 
land trouble was a comprehensive cause of 
continued distress. Not until recent years, 
however, has it attempted to rernedy the 
cause of this distress, but it has by direct 
legislation augmented the power of the land- 



Home Ride. 139 

lord and rejected measures offered to allevi- 
ate the condition of the tenant. 

If Ireland were governed by a Dublin 
Parliament actually representing the Irish 
people, such unequal legislation would be 
unknown. Home Rule would not build 
better houses for the tenant; it would not 
mend his fences, reclaim his waste lands or 
teach him better methods of farming; it 
would not revoice silent mills, restore dis- 
mantled factories, reanimate prostrate in- 
dustries, but with the conscious dignity of 
self government would come to the people 
as a whole a responsible activity and the 
material and social blessings which follow in 
its train. 

Neither can the claim be sustained that 
the Irish are a vicious people, full of sedi- 
tion and crime, and thus incapable of self- 
government. It is reported through author- 
itative channels that there is less crime in 
Ireland than in England. The outrages so 
loudly heralded are features of the agrarian 
strife which rages and has raged for centuries. 
This war cannot cease until the free untram- 
meled cultivation of the soil, and the enjoy- 



140 Home Rule, 

ment of the results of that labor, are guar- 
anteed to the toiler and actual occupant. 
It is a matter of surprise that so much 
oppression has been so patiently endured. 
The power to bear thus exhibited is an es- 
sential element in national independence. 
An official report given in 1849 by one Cap- 
tain Kennedy is filled with shocking details 
of forcible ejectments, some of which had 
not even the apology of technical legality. 
The report states, " These ruthless acts of 
barbarity are submitted to with an unre- 
sisting patience hardly credible." To this 
Sir Robert Peel remarks, " Such tragical 
instances I do not believe were ever pre- 
sented, either in point of fact or as conjured 
up even in the imagination of any human 
being." 

Is not intemperance a fruitful source of 
poverty and ignorance ? Certainly. Ireland 
is no exception to the rule; drink debases 
there as it does in England and the United 
States, although not to any greater extent. 
The name of Father Mathew is still revered, 
and his memory yet wields a mighty influ- 
ence for good. There exists a growing 



Home Rule, 141 

temperance sentiment, and the League of 
the Cross is an effective total abstinence 
society. 

Many of the Irish leaders are temperance 
men, and will be willing and anxious to 
embody the sentiment of the people in tem- 
perance legislation. As stated before, the 
Irish Parliament years ago desired restrict- 
ive legislation, but England refused to listen 
to the plea, claiming that she must have the 
revenue ! 

It is urged by opponents of the Irish 
cause that Home Rule would be " Rome 
Rule," and attention is called to the fact that 
Papacy to-day exerts more complete sway in 
Ireland than in any country on the earth. 

Great apprehension is expressed lest the 
existing overwhelming Catholic majority in 
social intercourse, in educational work, in 
business and trade would grow unbearably 
arrogant and insufferably intolerant if its 
present power were supplemented by politi- 
cal ascendency. It is even honestly feared 
that this ascendency might assume the form 
of religious persecution, and the future 
equal the past in secret, if not in open out- 



142 Home Rule. 

rage. The history of Ireland proves too 
much to justify this apprehension. The 
most appalling outrages of the past have 
been between opposing faiths, but not 
chiefly because of these faiths. Hereditary 
family or tribal feuds, conflicting systems of 
laws, agrarian controversies, and contested 
military supremacy, have entailed these in- 
humanities. 

Banners bearing emblems of political faith 
have been waved, shibboleths of creeds have 
been uttered, but the real cause has been 
found in conditions quite foreign to religion 
or creed. 

It was not Puritanism and psalm-singing 
as opposed to the mass and the confessional 
that brought gory ascendency to the Crom- 
wellian conquest, neither was inquisitorial 
malignity the great conspirator in the mas- 
sacres of 1 64 1 or the rebellion of 1798. 

Let it not be forgotten that England was 
a Catholic country during the earlier cent- 
uries of her conquests in Ireland, and that 
the fruitage of present hatred ripened on 
trees planted when these nations were of 
common faith. The parties to the present 



Home Rule. 143 

controversies are of both faiths ; Gladstone 
is a champion of English Protestantism as 
represented by the established church, Par- 
nell is a Protestant Dissenter, Dillon and 
William O'Brien are Catholics, the magis- 
trates before whom O'Brien was tried were 
also Catholics, as are some of the most 
obnoxious landlords. Ireland's long contro- 
versy has been a revolt against England's 
policy of conquest, rather than a revolt 
aginst Protestantism, and Ireland has wel- 
comed the supremacy of Rome as a shield 
to her civil liberties as well as a dictator of 
her faith. 

At a great meeting in Dublin in the 
summer of 1887, the presiding officer was 
the Very Reverend Dr. Walch, archbishop 
of Dublin, supported on either side by three 
Protestant members of the House of Com- 
mons, who clearly stated their religious faith 
and boldly declared their willingness to 
"close up" when the ranks of Ireland's 
defenders should be thinned by the political, 
judicial or sanguinary slaughter of their 
Catholic confreres. No sentiment finds 
more enthusiastic response than declarations 



144 Home Rule. 

of common interests among those of oppos- 
ing religious faiths. Is not the love for 
liberty which finds utterance in the demand 
for self-government a universal sentiment ? 
Does it not rise to the dignity of a human 
instinct, always operative, except under in- 
dividual and national demoralization con- 
sequent upon servitude ? Will English 
Protestantism concede that Irish Catholi- 
cism is more potent for evil than this uni- 
versal love of liberty is potent for good ? 
In shame and sorrow do all Protestants 
remember that the required payments of 
church tithes from Catholics to the English 
Protestant Church, and the political disabili- 
ties imposed by the English Church and the 
property disabilities imposed by the Eng- 
lish Government upon Irish Catholics are 
the ghosts of the past that will not down, 
and before which trembles the Britain of 
to-day. 

The iniquities of the fathers are visited 
upon the children unto the third and fourth 
generation, and conscience makes a mighty 
nation a coward. But bigotry and revenge 
which may survive tyranny and war, cannot 



' Home Rule, 145 

long exist under the toleration and peace of 
political and civil liberty. 



To take a retrospective view of the politi- 
cal relations exlstlno: between Eno^land and 
Ireland, covering a period of several cent- 
uries, to note the conflicting interests there 
delineated, and to condense these experiences 
and conflicts into the short space of a few 
pages, and therefrom render an indictment 
against any of the later English Parliaments 
as represented by the Government party 
then in power, would seem to be an unjust 
conclusion of the matter. 

But when we see by a careful reading of 
such historical data as have been preserved 
from destruction, that the Government party 
in the British Parliament for centuries has 
almost invariably proceeded in one direction 
they have seemed to consider the Irish as 
a distinct race, and not naturally entitled to 
equal political rights with their own sub- 
jects, but that they were natural serfs, Igno- 
rant, belligerent and contumacious, having 
no rights that Engllsmen were bound to 



146 Home Rule. 

respect, we see how far the habit of power, 
the greed of wealth, and a worldly vanity 
upheld by an assumption of religious su- 
premacy, have been efficient in destroying 
the first simple and pure ideas of righteous- 
ness, moral, social and political. 

This high and holy principle has been 
sacrificed times without number. 

From such a view we are led to conclude 
that the indictment against the whole Eng- 
lish Government is correct, when this indict- 
ment declares that there is scarce one 
redeeming quality in the policy that has 
been maintained by that Government during 
these long years, but rather that there is but 
little parallel in history, either among bar- 
baric or half-civilized tribes of men, to such 
rapacious cruelty, such unjust assignment of 
political rights, as is here presented. 

Such, indeed, seems to be the case, and 
what the leading Christian nation of the 
world should have done was not to vie 
with semi-barbaric tribes in all the riot and 
glut of power after a conquest, but with this 
power still remaining in their hands, seek to 
govern by such politic measures as would 



Home Rule. 147 

have assured the conquered people that 
their real prosperity, order and just law, were 
the purpose of the dominating power they 
should have shown ; and then the Act of 
" Union " would have taken possession of 
the hearts of the Irish people, and the Brit- 
ish Empire stand before the world, what she 
claims herself to be, the rightful exponent of 
the bravest and best among nations. 

Would that it were so, and then we would 
not be compelled to search long and unsuc- 
cessfully for some redeeming quality, some 
justifying relation of things to excuse these 
acts of aggressive power. 



While we of America condemn England's 
tardy justice and her actual criminality to- 
wards Ireland, let us remember that w^e are 
of the same stock ; her ancestors are ours ; 
her history until within a little more than 
a hundred years is our history. We of this 
young nation have a clear field, an open 
arena. We have escaped the duty of solv- 
ing questions which the accretions of time 
and the complicatioiis of dense populations 



148 Home Rule. 

have left in the path of English progress ; 
more severe tests than any yet endured 
are before this young republic. Shall the 
smouldering fires of municipal misrule, of 
the alcoholic liquor traffic, of anarchy, con- 
sume our institutions, or shall our struggle 
with them purify our national character ? 

What are the evils, and what the reme- 
dies ? Upon a conscientious solution is the 
welfare of our nation dependent. Many of 
these evils are the direct outcome of real 
and fancied evils in our system of land 
tenure, which we have seen to be the fruit- 
ful cause of Ireland's distress. The careless 
thinker may scoff, but it is easier to sneer 
at the theories of Henry George than to pa- 
tiently study conditions which, even in a land 
so favored as is ours, already cause distress 
and suffering. In the immediate past, our 
ready answer to all suggestions of agrarian 
discontent has been to point to our immense 
West. But what was once known as the 
Great American Desert, now knocks for 
admission as a State, while pleasant farms 
and thriving villages fill the territory beyond, 
once unknown save to the Indian and trap- 



Home Rule. 149 

per. Remembering that the best land is 
always taken first, and that as the quantity 
of land remaining decreases, so does the 
quality of the land depreciate, and that 
much of what was once our country's patri- 
mony is now held by speculative syndicates, 
many of them composed of foreign aristo- 
crats, we cannot settle the question by drafts 
upon resources which no longer exist. Our 
unemployed can no longer be calmly referred 
to Western land as the panacea for all their 
complaints. We have had our Haymarket 
Square. Let us beware lest that sudden 
outburst become a flowing lava stream of 
menace. To England, with her crowded 
population and small area, these problems 
have come in all their intensity. Similar 
questions confront us, although the con- 
ditions under which they must be solved 
are much more favorable. 

At our first constitutional centennial we 
do well to set up our monuments of prog- 
ress, but we do better to observe the ruins 
of history. Observing these failures in 
governmental policy, these inhumanities of 
aggressive power, these disasters of national 
arrogance, may we avoid a like calamity. 



There is nothing more refreshing to pick up in 
odd minutes than a briglit collection out of the 
poetry of all time of the brightest on almost no 
matter what subject, even the weather. 

Through the Year with the Poets, edited by Oscar Fay 
Adams. A volume a mouth of about 140 pages eacli, with 
auiplc indices. 16mo, cloth, 75 cents each; parti-colored cloth, 
$1.00. 

And dainty book-making has much to do with 
the pleasure of scrappy reading. 



New Every Morning, a j^ear-book for girls, by 
Annie H. Kyder, is a helpful thought or two, out of 
current writers mainly, for every day in the year ; 
not religious, but chosen for serious aptitude to 
the state of things in the world we live in. 196 
pages. Square IGmo, cloth. ^1.00 



Notable Prayers of Christian Ilisiory. By Hez- 
ekiah Butter worth. So far as we k.iow, there is 
no other book in which are gathered the notable 
prayers of devout men of all times with their 
biographical and historical connections. 304 pages. 
16mo, cloth, 1.00. 



Let not the bookseller venture a word on sc ab- 
struse a subject as Browning. 

Christmas Eve and Easter Day, and Other Poems. By 
Robert Browning. Introduction by W. J. Rolfc. The Theory 
of Robert Browning concerning Personal Immortality by 
Ileloise Edwina Ilersey. With notes. 175 pag !S. 16mo, cloth, 
75 cents. 

For Browning Classes and Clubs. The text is 
in very generous type. 



Faith and Action is an F. D. Maurice Anthology. 
Preface by Phillips Brooks. The subjects are: 
Life, Men, Reforms, Books, Art, Duty, Aspira- 
tion, Faith. 269 pages. 12mo, cloth, {jjil.OO. 



Quito a new sort of history. School days over, 
four ,ii:irl friends return to their homes and life 
begins. As often happens, life is not as they 
picture it. Wliat it was for the four and how 
they met it you shall read in the quiet book. 

After Sdiool Days. By Christina Goodwin. 196 pages. 
12mo, cloth, $1.00. 

It Is a comforting fact a thousand times that 
nobody knows, to be sure of it, what is good for 
him or her. Disappointments are often shorn of 
their bitterness by the remembrance of it. Often 
what we look forward to, hope for, strive for, 
make ourselves anxious about, turns out to be of 
no particular value ; and what we fear and strive 
against turns out good fortune. Rarely is this 
practical wisdom made so sure as in this whole- 
some history out of the stuff that dreams are 
made of. 



A practical help for a girl to surround herself 
with pleasant things without much shopping. The 
book is mainly lilled with ways to exercise taste 
on waste or picked-up things for use with an eye 
to decoration as well. ^ • 

For a Girl's Room. By Some Friends of tnc Girls. 236 
pages. 12mo, doth, $1.00. 

A friendly sort of a book to fill odd minutes, 
whether at home or out, for herself or another. 
By no means on "fancy-work" — not all work — 
Chapter XXI is How to Tame Birds and XXV is 
What to Do in Emergencies. 



How to Cook Well is promising title. The au- 
thor, J. Rosalie Benton. We light on this sen- 
tence on breakfast: "Yet in how many families 
is it the custom to send the master of the house 
to his daily round of business with an unsatisfied 
feeling after partaking of a hurried meal alto- 
gether unpalatable ! " That is still more promis- 
ing. There are 400 pages of performance. 12mo, 
cloth, $1.50. 



One of the ways to get some notions of things 
into young folks' heads without any work on their 
part is to tell them stories and weave in the 
knowledge. 

Another way is to make a book of such stories. 
The book has the advantage of the story-teller. 
It can be full of pictures; and one can be more 
careful in making a book than in talking. If his 
memory slips a little, he can stop and hunt up the 
facts. 

Stor}'- Book of Science. By Lydia Hoyt farmer. Illus- 
trated. 330 pages. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. 

There are twenty different stories and seventy 
five pictures. A surprising number of bits of 
knowledge are woven and pictured in ; and the 
book is as light and easy as if it were nonsense. 

There's so much to know nowadays. Children 
have to begin before they know it. 



Waifs and their Authors is a collection, by A. 
A. Hopkins, of poetry worthy of preservation, 
mainly out of newspapers and by living writers 
not yet ranked as Poets — with notes, personal, 
biographical, critical, genial always, under twenty- 
one names. 317 pages. 



The i'amily Flights, by Edward Everett Hale 
and Susan Hale, are a series of book journeys 
through the several countries with eyes and ears 
w^ide open, old eyes and young eyes, and ears. The 
books are full of pictures, and fuller of knowl- 
edge not only of what is going on but what has 
gone on ever since book-making began, and fuller 
> at of brightness and interest. You see the old as 
old ; but you see it ; you see where it was and the 
marks it left. You see the new with eyes made 
sharper by knowledge of what has gone on in the 
world. 

In other words these books amount to some- 
thing like going through these places w^ith a trav- 
eling-companion who knows all about them and 
their histories. 

They are written and pictured for boys and 
girls : but there is nothing to hinder the old folks 
going along. Will you go? 

Family Flight througli France, Germany, Norway and 
Switzerland. 405 pages. 

Family Flight over Egypt and Syria. 388 pages. 

Family Flight througli Spain. 360 pages. 

Family Flight around Home (which means about Boston/ 
366 pages. 

Family Flight through Mexico. 300 pages. 

Each 8vo, boards, $1.75 ; cloth, $2.25. 

One of the most effective means of exciting 
and satisfying zeal for knowledge of the world we 
have in books. 



A good book for young folks is Ned Mel- 
bourne's Mission, not too good*to have a spice of 
life and adventure, but with that indirect influence 
for good thinking and good doing that is more 
potent than a sermon to young people. 

Ned Melbourne's Mission. 12mo, cloth, $1.50. 



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